


Another Fly-by Mission to Pluto

by JoJo



Series: Fosterdaddy Josiah [3]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Foster Care, Gen, Kid Fic, Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-25
Updated: 2013-03-25
Packaged: 2017-12-06 11:35:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/735202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo/pseuds/JoJo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The adoption hearing for Nathan, Vin and J.D. should be straightforward.  It would help if Josiah could actually be there though, instead of leaving one of his kids home sick and driving overnight to Texas with Buck and Chris to answer a very worrying distress call...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Fly-by Mission to Pluto

**Author's Note:**

> _A Pair of Hopalong Boots_ was set a few days before Christmas. _Pro Tem_ was set over the Christmas holiday. This story takes place the following October.
> 
> Many thanks to my wonderful betas [farad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad) and [hardboiledbaby](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hardboiledbaby/pseuds/hardboiledbaby) \- all mistakes my own.

“Here it is then,” Buck said on a late October morning, and he dropped a white windowed envelope on to Josiah’s breakfast plate when actually Josiah had been holding out for eggs.

Over at the stove, Chris was banging about with bacon, a whisk and a certain amount of tension. At the table the steady scraping of spoon against bowl slowed for the first time since J.D. and Vin had sat down.

Nobody in the room, of any age, was in doubt about what the letter contained. Inside that four-by-nine rectangle they knew there to be news of how the future might look. About such largely unacknowledged, but deeply significant, notions of permanence and belonging and security... at last.

After all the years, all the endings and beginnings, the struggle against the red tape of the system and the predictable spite of third parties, Josiah thought it shouldn’t be too much to hope that it go through smoothly.

He’d proved his suitability, so he was told. Time and time again. There was little to no chance that the court would sanction the removal of any one of Nathan, Vin or J.D. now. But whether they could bring themselves to approve full adoption – make them a legal, full-time clan - seemed to be another question.

“Can you take the pressure?” Chris asked Josiah over his shoulder.

The question was not as challenging as it could have been, for which Josiah was grateful. He’d butted heads with Chris once or twice pretty badly over the last month or so, ever since Chris and Buck had begun to settle into their ominous routine of parties and sex and Lord knew what else. Josiah could have thrown them out, of course – like other fathers did, like his own father had done when he’d transgressed house rules once too often – try and teach them the value of respect for home and their own health. But that was hardly likely. What the hell was the point of all these years of struggle and bonding just to sever it at the last? If either or both of them were going to leave home, they’d have to do it by choice. Josiah didn’t think they would, though, not yet. Especially not if this letter brought them closer to what they all said they wanted. 

“No pressure, no diamonds,” he replied coolly, reaching for his reading glasses. He was pretty sure Chris was making a face behind his back at the familiar mantra, but that didn’t matter. Josiah held the envelope up and then slit it open with a buttery knife. Across the table Vin and J.D., still slowly eating their rice pops, watched him. There was a certain wariness about Vin, as if he might be thinking of bolting from the room. He didn’t have good experience of official letters dropping on the mat.

“They won’t say nothin’ for sure, not on the page,” Buck told him, seeing it. “It’ll be all ‘the party of the first part’ crap... nothin’ for sure.”

The paper inside the envelope crackled as Josiah extracted it. He unfolded the single sheet, scanned it quickly, re-read it carefully, then looked over the top of his glasses.

“Buck’s right,” he said, finding a reassuring smile. “But this is good. They haven’t put it off again – which means everyone must be on board now.”

In other words, so he hoped, the unstable remnants of Vin and J.D.’s families had dropped their equally unstable challenges. Not that he’d put it like that in front of the boys, who, while they desperately didn’t want to go back to the chaos they’d come from, nevertheless didn’t like to hear it criticized. 

“Very good,” Josiah continued, “this time we have a date for the final hearing. ‘Nother couple weeks.” He scanned it once more, squashing down his disappointment that there was nothing in the wording to encourage him, give him some clues. It had been a long road already this year. The attorney on their case, Christina Alvarez, was cautiously confident of a positive outcome by now, and Social Services had hinted at him often enough that everything would go well, that in their eyes it was practically a done deal. Hell, but this letter was about as dry a missive from them as he’d ever received.

There were greasy translucent spots appearing on the paper now from where the butter had smeared. Josiah gave the youngest boys another steady smile as he folded it, laid it on the table.

“’kay, hurry up now – bus goes in twenty. We have homework and lunch to find.” He beetled his brows. “And teeth.”

J.D. giggled through the mouthful of milk and breakfast cereal. He showed his incisors through the masticated glop.

“Nasty,” Buck said, poking him. He glanced round. “That bacon done yet?”

“Yep.” There was a clatter by the stove and Chris glowered at the whole table. “Only looks like nobody’s got time.”

“Just get it on the table, stud,” Buck told him. “We’ll find time.”

Josiah swigged at his coffee, put the mug down on top of the folded page from Social Services. He remembered now what he’d been about to ask when the letter dropped from on high. “Where’s Nathan, anyhow?”

Vin swallowed, dangled his spoon over his bowl. For a sunny-faced child he had the ability to look awful shifty on occasion. Like now. “Ain’t seen him. He musta gone out early.”

“Any idea why?”

From across the table Vin gave him a big, overblown blue-eyed look of innocence. “Nope.”

“Uh huh. Should I be worried?”

It was J.D.’s turn to swallow. He reached for his orange juice, swiveled a look at Chris advancing to the table with a plate of bacon. “He likes to get to school early.”

Josiah adopted an air of casual, friendly interest. “Oh, and why’s that?”

“Well it’s not homework. Kid’s not even _doin’_ his homework, not like he used to,” Buck put in. “You noticed that?”

Of course, Josiah had noticed that. He’d wondered if maybe it was a girl. Homework had gone right out of the window with the eldest two when they were young teens. With Buck it had stayed out the window. And talking of noticing things, now Josiah was aware that Vin was pinching J.D. under the table, to keep him quiet. Soon there would be orange juice all over.

“You want bacon?” he asked them quickly. “You two! Hey, you want bacon?”

J.D. did all right, but Vin didn’t. He wanted to leave the table, melt into the background, and Josiah knew it was because he had some knowledge he’d been asked not to divulge. Probably important. Maybe J.D. knew something about it too, but he’d likely get whatever it was in a muddle somehow. Josiah didn’t push it. Instead he bided his time until J.D. was brushing his teeth and Vin was gloomily stuffing random pieces of paper in his backpack. The poor kid still hated school. Really, really hated it. Enough that Josiah and Nettie Wells had researched home schooling more than once, but came to the conclusion that stepping outside the system might not appeal to the powers in the Department of Deciding What’s Best for Everyone Else.

Taking the coats down from the hook, Josiah watched him for a moment. “Nathan having a problem you know anything about, Vin?”

Without turning from his task Vin said, “Ain’t supposed to tell.”

“Thing is,” Josiah mused, deciding not to do the speech about how sometimes it was better not to keep secrets, “now you’ve said that, I know it’s important. And I know I need to find out what it is.”

Vin hoisted the backpack, didn’t look at him. “Can’t tell you much,” he said quietly. “’cause I don’t know much. He’s... maybe havin’ trouble with some kids.” The small admission told Josiah that Vin, while he didn’t want to tell tales, was worried about Nathan.

“Oh,” he said as if it were no revelation at all. “Trouble.” He moved to open the front door, aware that J.D. was haring down the hallway at speed. “Well... I’ll have to see what I can do about that. Thank you, Vin.”

Buck was bearing down on them now, too, still eating a piece of bacon. It was his responsibility to get the kids to the bus on his way to work, and it seemed they were always in a last-minute dash.

“Out tonight,” he said as he passed.

Josiah had J.D.’s backpack ready to hand to him before he rushed by without it. “Late?” The question didn’t refer to the bus.

“Could be.” Buck clearly didn’t want to say more, which figured. There would be girls and beer, for sure, the usual pattern. “And Chris has a date.”

“Again? With that Ella?”

Buck made a face at him as he grabbed for the door handle, J.D. scooting under his arm. “Told him she’s trouble – heck, told him over and over – but he’s dead set on her.”

Again, the “t” word. 

When the door banged shut, Josiah wondered if he was beginning to get a headache. He was working from home today, and he was glad about that at least. But Hell, the anxieties were stacking up, and he’d only had one cup of coffee. 

Chris was still at the kitchen table, lounging back in his chair, plate empty and texting on his cell. Josiah moved to pour himself another cup of coffee, looked morosely at the detritus of breakfast all over the worktop.

“So,” he said on the turn, robustly up-front. “Another date?”

Chris’s eyes snapped to him at once, suspicious. There was a flash of anger in there too, the pursing of lips. He didn’t like his business being bandied around and Josiah figured Buck might get it in the neck later.

“Yes.” He sounded reluctant to speak.

“Still the same girl?”

Chris gave him that look, then. That kind of dangerous ‘okay, now butt out’ look which Josiah actually knew better than to ignore. He held up his hands in a gesture of peace, to state he wasn’t going to pursue the question right now if that was how Chris felt about it.

“I have to get to work.” Chris pocketed his cell, scraped back his chair. He had the good grace to glance guiltily at the mess he’d left by the stove, but Josiah just waved him away.

“Thanks for the bacon,” he made sure to say. “Don’t wake up the house coming in.”

Waking up the house coming in had been just one of the results of Chris being with this Ella Gaines, who Buck, in all his eighteen year-old knowledge of young women, didn’t trust an inch. Chris nodded casually as he exited, his boots rapping along the hallway. The sound of his coat being wrenched off a hook, car keys jangling, came a second or two later. He was already talking in a low, amused voice on the cell as he banged out of the front door. A minute later the truck engine fired up and tires rolled slowly down the drive.

And then, Josiah realized, he was alone in the house and all was quiet.

Although there was nothing written down he was well aware he had a sizeable ‘to-do’ list. The first thing he’d thought when he woke up was that he had to make his long-promised appointment with the ophthalmologist. Nathan had been bugging him about it for weeks, and he was running out of excuses. Beyond that he knew he had to get his head around the work he was supposed to be doing, at home, today. Not worry about Nathan and what trouble at school was interfering with his studies. Or Vin and how to get him up to speed and keep his interest engaged at the same time, keep him actually turning up to class. Not to mention what Chris was heading for. 

All the time he was stacking the dishwasher, bagging up the trash, trying to ignore the odd color the kitchen floor was turning, he endeavored to think only of university work. Courses. Timetables. Tutor groups. The History of Eastern Philosophy module which the Dean wanted to drop because it wasn’t ‘useful’.

By the time he was at his desk, coffee mug refilled for the third time, Josiah had managed to get himself in the mood, more or less. Just before pulling his agenda towards him, he flipped open a thick, buff-colored file against the wall, meaning to poke the buttery letter from Social Services inside and forget about it for a while.

Damn it.

The file was fat with hopes. Josiah’s stomach turned over. They were hopes he hadn’t ever been able to ignore, some of them going back years, to when it had been him and Hannah in this together. The outside of the file was covered in doodles, some frantic, scribbled at moments of bad news, some intricate, formed in idleness while he’d been hanging on the line during waits for the right person to take his call. And somewhere inside the file, inserted amongst a bunch of dry documentation, was that... other thing. That other thing he’d been trying not to think of because it just didn’t seem to be getting any of them anything but heartache and frustration. For months now it had been nothing but a dead end, a wall of silence, a goddamned heavy, hanging question. Even Vin had stopped asking it.

_What’s happening about Ezra?_

Lord knew. Josiah didn’t even know where the kid was right now. Somewhere in the St. Louis area, he hoped, with some foster family he prayed was giving him what he sorely needed–both the easy things like education, a roof, access to his mother, and the harder ones like security, boundaries... affection.

Clearing his throat, as if he thought that would clear away the thoughts, Josiah plopped the new letter on top of all the old ones and flipped shut the fat file. There was nothing he could do right now. Nothing but privately fret. His interest had been noted, his queries filed, his help last Christmas acknowledged. For the moment none of it – officially - was anything to do with him, and being unofficial had its time and place.

Half-heartedly, he reached for his briefcase and the sheaf of assignments to be marked. Even as he slipped on his glasses, took up his green pen and focused on the first, scrawled title, he was wondering idly if it would just be too interfering of him to go down to Nathan’s school later and wait for him to come out. Try and get a handle on what was going on. 

Yes, he thought regretfully, even as he read through the incoherent introduction of a piece of work about ethics. It probably would.

*

By the time dinner was dished up that evening, Josiah had decided to remain as hands-off with Nathan as he could manage, for the time being anyhow. Whatever was going on, the boy needed to bring it to him, not the other way about. Interfering and being over-protective would almost certainly get Josiah nowhere very fast.

At the table Nathan was quiet, but not totally silent. He played with his food some, wondered out loud where the oldest two were and on being informed by J.D. he rolled his eyes.

“Who has homework?” Josiah asked. “Apart from me, that is?”

“Spelling,” Vin admitted with a huff of dislike. “But it don’t matter.”

“You have a test?”

The boy shrugged, careless. “Maybe. Friday. Or next week. I dunno.”

“It’s usually Friday,” Nathan said. “It was Friday last week.”

Vin glowered at him from under his floppy, curling hair. “Ain’t none of your business.”

“I’ll test you,” Nathan said, airy. “If you learn ‘em.”

“Ain’t for tomorrow, and I don’t need you to test me anyhow.”

“Better to do it tonight than tomorrow.”

“It won’t stick.”

“Will if we go over ‘em again tomorrow.”

Appalled, Vin looked to Josiah to help him out of this nightmare. “But that’s like doin’ it twice over! That ain’t fair.”

“That’s _not_ fair,” Nathan corrected and Josiah cringed a little. Nathan could be a tad heavy-handed with his superior knowledge of things sometimes. Especially when he wasn’t contented with life.

“You have any other assignment for tonight?”

Vin screwed up his face in thought. Josiah knew that the answer, whatever it was, might not be accurate. Vin had a tendency to ‘forget’ about what he didn’t want to do in terms of schoolwork. Or employ avoidance tactics. It was important to make him think about it, but in the end the answer would be written in his homework agenda, supposing the thing had made it home from school in the first place.

“Nope.” The boy was suspiciously confident.

“Well, if you just double check after we finish eating, to make sure... then I’d like you to spend maybe... half an hour on the spellings? I’m sure if you learn them well tonight they’ll stick until Friday. We can always run through ‘em over breakfast Friday morning.” They’d used that method once or twice before, although only when Vin was in the mood.

There was another huff and a murmur of reluctant assent. Josiah switched his attention to J.D.

“You have anything you need to do?”

“Times tables,” the youngest said, complacent. “But I know them already. Better than anyone. Better than Josh, and much better than Mikey Jacobs and better than all the girls. I’m the best at them.” He nudged Vin, expecting or hoping for some agreement but Vin just pretended to stick his fingers down his throat.

“Well good. Think you ought to just check through them while Vin’s doing his spellings though. Just to make sure.”

“Okay.” J.D. shrugged, easy. As long as it was something to do, he didn’t mind.

“Nathan?” Vin’s sudden question was nothing if not pointed. “You got homework?”

“Of course.” Nathan was lofty. 

“Much?” Josiah tried to keep his question mild.

“Couple things,” Nathan muttered, although he kept his eyes fixed to his plate. “I’ll go in early and do it before school.”

“Well, as long as we’re all organized,” Josiah said, switching his tone so as if to dismiss all thoughts of homework from everyone’s mind, “I think it might be time for... oh, ice-cream at the very least.”

“And at the very most?” Vin asked hopefully.

“Sprinkles?” Josiah hazarded, innocent. “Butterscotch sauce?”

“Yum!” J.D. shouted out, chair rocking. “And ‘cos Chris’n’Buck ain’t here...”

“All the more for us,” Josiah agreed, grinning wide, although inwardly he heaved a sigh of regret.

The spellings didn’t go well. In fact, they were their usual unmitigated disaster. Since Vin had convinced himself he couldn’t learn them, nothing would stick, and since the test wasn’t even the following day, he shut his mind down after a while, claiming he couldn’t remember one more thing.

“You’re not trying,” Nathan told him as he passed by on the way to the bathroom, and so there was a spat. Josiah only just managed to get to the spellings book before Vin ripped out the offending page in frustration and fury. 

“Git off it!” Vin yelled at him, tugging for all he was worth. “I’m special needs and special needs can’t do this! Give me my book!”

“Not if you’re going to damage it. Nathan, leave it now. You go and sort out your own work. J.D., go get your reading.”

“I ain’t reading either!” Vin raged. “I can’t do that stupid story and it don’t make sense anyhow. Give me my book!”

Josiah didn’t give it. “Not doing your homework is one thing. You know I won’t make a fuss about that most of the time. But damaging school property is another. You want to tear up paper, you go tear up the paper in the recycle box. Or be a human paper shredder for me in my study. But you don’t rip books.” He stood solidly planted, his hands behind his back and the book closed within them. 

Vin stopped trying to get it, but his emotion remained sparkling in his eyes, evident in the flush of his face and the clenching of his fists. He could be a fierce little warrior when he wanted.

The reading was another thing. Josiah wished heartily that Chris wasn’t out tonight, or Buck. Both of them were good at reading with the younger ones, could take the responsibility off him for a while, and even enjoy themselves while they were at it. Not since Ella and the current round of parties though. No, nothing since that.

“What’s wrong with the stupid story?” he asked, genuinely interested.

Vin snorted. “It’s about some stupid girl and her friends.”

“Your teacher gave it you?”

“I just picked it.” Vin was sulky now. “Just grabbed it so’s she’d stop nagging me. Now she won’t let me swap ‘til I read it.”

“Well it doesn’t sound like your thing, I’ll give you that.” Josiah produced the spelling book again, to prove he trusted Vin not to pounce on it. “Heck, I’ll sign your agenda, say you’ve read it. We’ll find something else for you to read tonight – something you’ll like. What do you reckon? When you’ve put this – in one piece – in your schoolbag.” He held out the spellings book and Vin made a face before plucking it from Josiah’s fingers.

“’kay,” he said. “But what are you gonna give me? I can’t do any of Nathan’s. I don’t want to read J.D.’s, they’re dumb little kid books.”

“What about that one Ezra left behind?” Josiah said, the words out of his mouth before he thought.

Vin frowned. Although he asked about Ezra a lot, it was not always clear to Josiah if he longed for, or actually feared, the now nine year-old coming back into their lives. Perhaps a little of both, and rightly so.

“I never got my space book back,” he said, and dropped his shoulders. “You think Ezra still has it?”

“I’m sure he does.”

“He coulda sent it,” Vin said in disgust. “I mean, I know he had ta go away and all, couldn’t bring it to school, but he coulda sent it, from wherever he was. It has my name in, he musta remembered. And he promised.” His face set. “I don’t want to read Ezra’s stupid book. It’ll be too hard.”

“You don’t know that. You could try.”

“Nah, if Ezra liked it then I know I wouldn’t.”

Josiah shook his head. “You both liked the space book.”

“ _My_ space book.”

Vin had brought hardly any possessions with him when he was first placed with them. He’d greeted anything bought for him with shy surprise, and only formed strong attachments to a few, very particular things, and not always what Josiah expected. Trot the horse, for example, which even J.D. found beneath him. And the space book. Which of course Ezra had only gone and walked off with in the brief time they’d shared a table in the classroom.

“We must have something else like that,” Josiah said thoughtfully. “We have so many books. Nettie Wells gave me a bunch of stuff about horses and cowboys. You want to look through that? There might be something.”

“Too hard,” Vin said. “I can’t.”

“No harder than your space book. Go look. They’re in a box by the desk.”

Vin didn’t want to capitulate, but he was tired now, and probably well aware that Josiah had gone easy on him over his outburst. 

“’kay.”

“Good, and son? Go put your spellings in your bag now, before you forget.”

Vin gave him a look before he exited, but Josiah heard him rooting about in the hall, guessed the book was being shoved somewhere deep into the bag.

In the short span of time before he initiated the often wayward bedtime routine, Josiah decided to go see how Nathan was doing. He’d been slouched in front of the TV since Vin’s meltdown, apparently having forgotten all his previous offers of homework help. When Josiah came into the lounge, he looked up, tipped his chin in surly acknowledgment, then stared back at the screen.

“Anything good?”

“Channel hopping.”

Josiah didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to ask the question outright, about if Nathan had work to do, if there was a reason he’d stopped studying as hard as he had been. If the trouble was what he suspected and feared it might be. Instead he just looked over the room at him, taking in the newly broad frame, the stubborn chin, the dark eyes full of intelligence. Watching TV mindlessly was not Nathan Jackson. He was a do-er, a try-er, anxious to grasp all the opportunities he had and make the absolute best and worthiest of them that he could. Josiah experienced a flush of resolution. Perhaps it was unfair to expect the boy to come to him. Perhaps he should be proactive this time. He was just about to open his mouth when Nathan’s gaze, not very pleased, swung his way.

“Look I got nothing to tell you so stop lookin’ at me like that! Well nothing that’s any surprise, all right? When I do, I’ll let you know.” And with that, he got right up, slung the remote on to the couch next to his foster father, and stomped out of the room, banging the door behind him.

Josiah caught his breath. He wasn’t sure, thought maybe that was Nathan’s first major door slam. Not the greatest example, mind. Chris had probably been the best at that – he could make the whole house shudder on his day. Oh well. Josiah hunched his shoulders, then released them, tried to breathe in calm. He reached for the remote, began flicking through the channels himself, knowing there’d be nothing he wanted to watch. In his back pocket he felt his cellphone vibrate. Fishing it out, he squinted hard to read the tiny text.

_“Staying over - B.”_

‘Staying over.’ 

Which probably translated as ‘getting wasted, planning to sleep with someone, not sure where I’ll wake up’.

Josiah’s thoughts sprang unbidden to the buttery letter in the fat file. Now was so not the time for Chris and Buck to be raising hell. Maybe it was the cue for him to stop going easy on those guys. Young as they were, they had a responsibility to this family. A wash of anger, followed by another of tiredness overcame Josiah, and he knew it was stress. His instinct was to get up and pour himself a glass of Bourbon, but that, like the hellraising, was just not helpful at the moment. The need for it itched under his skin nevertheless but he gritted his teeth against it.

The faint sound of an altercation had broken out somewhere overhead. His forehead creased in a frown. 

Here we go...

He rose to his feet, turned off the TV. Stretching out his spine, he readied himself. Even as he strode out into the hallway he was saying,

“Hey! I didn’t even give you guys permission to go on the computer! Give me a break!”

The rocky road to bedtime looked like it was going to be rockier than ever tonight. And would have to be negotiated without Bourbon, and without Chris and Buck. It was one of those moments that he really, really wished that it wasn’t all down to him.

Buck, true to his message, didn’t come home that night. So Josiah didn’t sleep so very well. He heard Chris opening the front door at around one in the morning. Then the not very successful attempts to tiptoe to the bathroom. When something dropped, and apparently smashed, on the bathroom floor Josiah sat up and half expected a shout from J.D. across the room. They’d been going to move him into the bunkbed with Vin, convert the storage room in the attic for Nathan – until the bed-wetting started again, so for now J.D. was still in the little bed under the window. And not always sleeping through the night.

Chris, on the other hand, slept right through his alarm, and when he came staggering out of his room in the morning after Josiah rapped on it halfway through breakfast, he looked pale. He had a great big, goddamned hickey on his neck, too.

“We need to talk,” Josiah said, looking at it, and then at Chris.

“Not now,” Chris growled. “I’m late.”

“Yeah. Me too. Didn’t sleep so well.”

A beat of uncomfortable silence. “Sorry.”

So, Chris was still onside. Just about.

There was a sound from down in the hallway then, of someone barging at speed through the front door.

“I’m back!” Buck’s voice hollered up the stairs as the door slammed shut behind him. He sounded annoyingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. “Bet you thought I wouldn’t be! Hope you little guys are ready!”

Chris groaned and shuffled off to the bathroom. Josiah turned and headed for the stairs.

Maybe Buck was still onside too. Just about.

While the kids were racing about finding all they needed for the day, he caught the oldest two in the kitchen together, in a huddle over the coffee pot. They’d been exchanging details about their nights’ activities, Josiah was pretty sure, and of course they tailed off when he came in.

“Yeah look,” he said, one eye on the clock. “No time for a big speech. Just... I’ve been thinking.”

They looked at one another, and then at him.

“We’re grounded?” Chris hazarded, half joking, although managing not to smile even a little.

“Not exactly. Just...”

“You’d better be quick-” Buck began in impatience, but Josiah held up a hand and that was enough to reduce him to silence.

“Now’s not the time for it, boys.” His voice was tighter than he wanted it to be. “Not the time for getting drunk and being picked up by some cop turning their sights on you, or complained about by neighbors, or some girl’s parents. Not the time for late nights and being underage and... all that.” His eyes moved once again to the half-covered mark on Chris’s neck. “I’d cut you more slack, like I usually do... but the thing is, you get into any trouble now, it won’t do Nathan, Vin and J.D. any favors when it comes to the hearing. Know what I mean? And, if it matters at all, reckon it’d slam the door on Ezra as well. Likely for good.” He tried not to overdo the apologetic tone. “Listen, I hate to do the emotional blackmail number on you, you know that... but this is how it is. I know you know it, that they’re gonna be looking at this stuff, all those people who decide what’s best. At me, at you two now you’re not kids anymore. You can do a hell of a lot to help right now. Or, you know... the opposite. That’s all.”

He shrugged, a little embarrassed at the warmth of his tone. His heart had started to canter while he was speaking, telling him just how strongly he felt, about how much he wanted things to go through without a hitch. Chris and Buck hadn’t interrupted though, or reacted. They’d just stared at him as he spoke. He saw Chris swallow, and Buck blow out his cheeks. The speech had hit home, Josiah hoped. And he hoped too that the hesitancy meant that both of them were processing, thinking about how pissed they felt about the prospect of curtailing what they wanted to do, what they were enjoying because they were young and had no responsibilities, and yet at the same time thinking about the others. About these boys that were their brothers in all but name. The family they’d all agreed they wanted to be.

“Ohhhhhkay,” Buck said at last. He exchanged another look with Chris. “But when the hearing’s over, and it says on the form that you’re the daddy...”

“Well _then_ ,” Josiah said drily. “Of course. You get to party on.”

A very small quirk elevated Chris’s mouth on one side, although he didn’t look capable of a full smile this morning. Josiah wondered how come, when both of them had evidently spent the night drinking and then almost certainly having sex, Buck was raring to go and Chris looked half trashed. He suspected it was not to do with the spirits imbibed but with the girl involved.

“Speech over,” he said. “You’d best get moving.” He nodded at the door. “Am I going to shout or are you?”

Buck’s face split in a smile then. He cupped his hands round his mouth and hollered at full volume, “Jaayyyyy Deeeeee! Viiiiiiiin!”

“Jesus,” Chris muttered and hunched over his mug of coffee.

Buck gave him an aggravating smirk. He opened his mouth again. “Naaayyyythaaaan! Get your ass into gear!”

The day, noisy and imperfect, swung into action.

Buck cooked dinner that night, mac and cheese, and he and Chris stayed in, although they seemed welded to their cellphones. Josiah allowed himself a beer, because he’d had a crap meeting all afternoon at the university, but he wouldn’t even look at the cabinet where he kept the Bourbon. It was just too, too tempting. J.D. was tired out and went to bed early, and Vin sought some necessary solitude, laying on his bunk flipping backwards and forwards through one of Nettie Wells’ horse books, although not actually reading any of it. Nathan seemed on the verge of saying something to Josiah all evening, but didn’t.

Friday was Friday, and Josiah said, not without a nervous twitch, that the oldest two could go out, of course they could, just so long as they didn’t stay out all night. Vaguely, at some unearthly hour in the morning, Josiah thought he’d heard car doors slamming, and then the sound of Chris arguing with someone outside on the driveway. 

Then came the weekend. Grocery shopping, sports practice, and Sunday up at Nettie’s with the horses and dogs and cats.

At Costco on Saturday morning, just as - even under the weight of a full shopping cart – Josiah was beginning to decompress just a little, he ran into Leila Beverley from Social Services. She was coming the other way down an aisle with her cart and there was no way to avoid her.

Vin and J.D. were trailing some way behind him by then, even though J.D. was still supposed to keep one hand on the cart. Josiah’s neck was stiff from craning to see where they’d gotten to, listening out for the telltale signs of cans rolling to the floor, or that Vin had commandeered an empty cart in another aisle and was hurtling it round corners like a runaway wagon while J.D. alternately whooped or howled in the back.

“Hey, Josiah, hi!” She was all smiles. A good-looking, sharp-eyed woman with no family of her own, her cart was full of bottles of wine and things Josiah had to negotiate to get his boys to eat – like fresh fish, leafy greens, and weird-looking fruit.

“Leila.”

“You have your hearing soon, right?”

She came right out with it, almost took Josiah’s breath away.

“Um.” He was tongue-tied, although not from shyness. It was never clear to him where Leila Beverley was coming from. She wasn’t supposed to tattle about cases, and could be very severe on anyone else who did, but there was something about Josiah’s situation that seemed to intrigue her in particular. His single status seemed an anomaly to her for a start and he sometimes felt like he had to make it clear to her he did date women from time to time. When he wasn’t too tired.

“Good luck with it, that’s all.” She sounded painfully sincere, which tended to make him suspicious. “You deserve it to go well. I’m sure it will.”

“Thank you.”

They stood in awkward silence for a second more. Josiah was just about to spin some guff about needing to get the boys to hockey practice or something, when Leila crossed her arms on her cart, leaned forward towards him.

“And you heard about that Standish kid, right?”

“Ezra.” Josiah’s response was automatic, yet weary. Leila still didn’t seem to have gotten the boy’s name fixed yet. He raised his brows in question.

Leila bugged her eyes expressively. As if the story was one that had made her life difficult. “He got moved - again.”

Josiah swallowed against a flux of acid in his throat. He didn’t like the sound of that, or of the faintly told-you-so air about Ms. Beverley all of a sudden.

“I’m not supposed to know where he was to begin with, remember,” he found himself saying, a little sharp. 

“Yeah well, he was placed, you know that I’m sure. Near his mom, so he could visit her in the penitentiary. He was placed twice actually, because the first one didn’t work out.... no surprise, it turns out the kid has sticky fingers and the police were... well anyway, they moved him again, back to where he was first registered when he was a baby, in Georgia.”

Registered. Like a parcel. A dog. A firearm. 

And he’d been a baby when things had gone wrong. When Social Services had been alerted. Unwanted somehow, or needing out of the situation he was in, fast, wanted or not. The same old, painful story that Josiah knew so well.

Letting his unseeing gaze rove over the shelves of tetra-pak juice and come to rest, more clearly, on the liquor, Josiah centered himself. “Wasn’t it your office telling me none of this was my concern only a few weeks ago?”

Leila Beverley looked chastened, but only mildly. “Just being friendly,” she said. “I thought you might be interested. All okay with your boys, Josiah?”

He pursed his lips, imagining himself answering but saying not one word. 

All absolutely fine. 

Except for Chris running off the rails with some bad element girlfriend, not to mention Buck getting wasted twice a week, Nathan giving up his ambitions because of ... who knows what, Vin dropping out of school at nine years old like the rootless family who’d messed him up in the first place, and J.D.... poor little guy, wetting the bed ever since a contact from his terminally-ill mother three weeks ago. 

Yeah, things couldn’t be better.

And, if she but knew it, he had a ton of further inquiries he was desperate to make about Ezra. What kind of family situation was he in right now? Was it working out this time? Moving so far away from his mother in prison – was that Ezra’s choice? Hers? A mere convulsion of bureaucracy?

He delivered Leila a tight smile instead of either filling her in on his situation, or spewing a load of emotionally-laden questions. Hell knew where the little guys had gotten to. He rattled his cart, anxious to go.

“I saw them right over there by the candy not a moment ago,” Leila said, lips curving in a knowing smile. 

“Better go fetch ‘em up then. Nice to see you, as always, Leila.” Josiah’s chivalrous side wasn’t feeling too chivalrous at present but Hannah had schooled him to _always_ make nice with Social Services.

“You too, Josiah. Good luck with it all. Really.”

Yes really, he thought, as he wheeled the cart rather wildly back down the aisle. Luck was about the only thing he could rely on with some of it. Luck, and the fact that, when he thought about it, he still felt a large dollop of belief that this was all actually meant to be, and would be – one way or another. Like all the boys did, on a good day.

He just hoped he was going to get the opportunity to throw some of that belief Ezra’s way before long.

At least he knew where the boy was now. Still couldn’t contact him direct, but at least he knew, at least there’d be a place to start once... well, once everything else was settled. Josiah wondered if he should tell Buck and Chris what he’d learned. After all, it was thanks to their meddling that Ezra had come and stayed those brief few days in the first place. The strangely lost and arrogant little kid had crash-landed in their midst, debunked Santa with disdain, brazenly filched a deck of cards belonging to Miss Nettie, fought with Vin and then squared up to Chris. He’d been a decidedly unsettling presence. Despite all that the boy had filled some unexpected hole none of them even knew about; then left a bigger one when he’d been whisked away again.

“Georgia?” Buck whistled when he heard. “Well damn, that’s a hell of a way.”

“Perhaps he has other family there?” Chris conjectured.

“Don’t think so. Think he was taken into care in the first place because the only family he had... couldn’t cope.” The tried and trusty euphemism, covering a multitude of grim situations. Josiah couldn’t help his sigh. “Things must’ve been bad if they took him that far away. Just hope it was joined-up thinking.”

“Can’t you really do anything else?” Buck seemed frustrated.

“Don’t think so, son. Ezra wasn’t with us long enough to be considered a placement in this family, so there’s no precedent for me to make contact. I’d be blocked. If he was still in the area, and things weren’t working out, we’d have a chance... but... well. I think we need to settle the other three first. Make ’em official. Then we’ll look at it again.”

He liked saying ‘we’; liked that Buck and Chris seemed to like it too.

It was a rare moment of peace and concord, the three of them sitting out in the cool on the deck behind the house, drinking beer and watching the Fall light fade behind the mountains.

Not that Josiah expected it to last. Any moment now that Ella Gaines would send Chris a text and he’d lose his composure, get jumpy as a hatful of grasshoppers. Or Buck would take a call – “hey, darlin’!” - and disappear off into the house without a backward glance, laughing at some huge joke known only to him and the girl on the other end of the line.

But, “And if Buck’n me want to be official too?” Chris said abruptly. His voice was a little strained, as if he was trying not to show how he felt. Was trying to be grown-up in a way he wasn’t used to.

Josiah looked through the gloom at them. Good-looking boys, both of them. Chris fair and intense, Buck dark and open-faced. Going their own way now, of course. But still here, still... connected. Maybe more connected than they’d ever been.

His boys. His first boys.

“You’re of age now, guys.” Josiah got a sudden fierce image in his head of Chris as he’d first seen him, a stringy, whipped pup of a kid, suspicious and angry at the world. And Buck not long after, with his big, sorrowful eyes and pretend grin. “You can take it up yourselves, if that’s what you think you want.” He found a toothy grin for them. “Not likely I won’t sign on the dotted line.”

Chris seemed to relax a little. He exchanged a look with Buck, who flashed him a big smile. Then someone’s cellphone rang. All three of them jumped, reached for their pockets.

“Me, it’s me,” Chris said, already on his feet. He swung away from them, shouldered his way through the sliding doors and into the house, his voice low.

“Wish she’d just stay away from him,” Buck muttered darkly, as the screen slapped shut. 

“At least until Tuesday week,” Josiah agreed, but Buck shook his head, glared into his empty beer bottle.

“Wish she’d leave him alone for good. She ain’t makin’ him happy. He’s jus’ lookin’ in the wrong place for the wrong thing.”

“Meaning?”

“Nothing about Ella Gaines is right. Chris says she’s damned fun to be with, but she’s nothing but trouble.”

“And Chris can’t see it?”

“Heck, he can see it all right. He even admits it. Don’t want to break loose though.”

“What about the other girls in your set?”

‘Your set’. Josiah winced at himself even as he used the archaic term. Buck gave him an amused look.

“Oh, well Mary’s... heh... she’s ‘walking out’ with Stephen Travis – don’t see those two much anymore, they’re all loved up. And Sarah...”

“Sarah?” Josiah tried to think if he knew much more about Sarah than her name.

“Reckon she’ll give up on him if he don’t see sense soon.”

“Which would be a bad thing?”

“Bad,” Buck confirmed darkly. “Real bad.”

Josiah quirked a brow, although he supposed Buck couldn’t see it in the dark. “What about you?”

Buck gave him a low laugh, his clear eyes twinkling even through the shadows. “I just like to play the field.”

“Right.” Josiah tapped the bottom of his beer bottle on his knee. “Safely, of course.”

“Of course,” Buck said, mildly offended. “And only with girls who want to play the field with me.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“You wouldn’t believe.”

“Oh,” Josiah said, wry, “I think perhaps I would.”

*

Both the eldest did their best to behave through the following week. Their best, as usual, was pretty good, although some way from perfect – which Josiah had always quietly admired. They couldn’t quite resist the allure of some girl’s house they jokingly referred to as ‘the Saloon’, not entirely, but at least it was only one night, and although Buck came home from hanging out there three sheets to the wind, he still managed to talk sensibly.

On Tuesday morning Vin decided he had a tummy ache. As usual with Vin, Josiah was caught between concern and skepticism.

“This wouldn’t be anything to do with Read-Aloud Day would it?” 

Rumbled, Vin scowled his way through a huge breakfast and out the front door. The next day, when his class were due to be out on a nature trail, he said he definitely didn’t have a tummy ache anymore. Josiah didn’t feel all his doubts had been answered since the boy merely nibbled his toast and brought home a thoroughly untouched sandwich box at the end of the day.

In the night Nathan, half asleep, stumbled into Josiah’s room without knocking.

“Vin’s cryin’.” He rubbed his eyes. “And he’s yakking up.”

By the time J.D. was dressed for school, demanding to know why there was a funny smell in the bathroom, Vin was curled unhappily in Nathan’s lower bunk with a fever and Josiah had rung around to get his classes covered.

“I can stay home,” Chris offered, peering round the boys’ bedroom door, one hand raking through the dark blond thatch of his bed-head. “I’m owed a couple days from the Stock Show.”

“Maybe tomorrow?” 

Chris tapped the panel in acknowledgement, threw Vin a sympathetic look before he left.

“Jaayyyy Deeeeeeee!” Buck was bellowing down the hall, shortly followed by Chris snarling at him to quit it.

Josiah reached down to feel Vin’s forehead, raised his brows at the ruckus outside. “Gonna be sick again?”

Vin, both flushed and pale, shook his head minutely. “No.” He sounded shaky. “Yes.” It was as if he wasn’t quite sure what the right answer should be. “Maybe.” Josiah nudged the plastic orange garbage bowl up the bed.

“You want me to sit with you?”

A very small nod, that actually Josiah hadn’t been expecting. This was the child who normally went to ground like a wounded cat when he was ailing.

“OK then.” It wasn’t an easy job, sitting on the bottom of the bunk beds. Josiah managed to find an almost comfortable position leaning on one elbow. “It’ll calm down, once the guys have gone... then maybe you can get some rest.”

Nathan was the last to leave for a change. From the sound of him packing his bag in the hall and making his way out of the front door, he was more than reluctant to be going at all. Josiah wondered how long he was going to give it before he caved.

Vin kicked his feet restlessly under the covers.

“Bathroom,” he croaked.

“This?” Josiah asked, flicking a finger against the bowl.

“The other.”

Josiah helped him sit up and get out of bed. Vin’s hands were chilly as they clasped on to his. All the way to the bathroom Vin’s steps were wobbly and it wasn’t a pleasant visit. Being upright didn’t seem to agree with him much either and Josiah was mighty relieved he was carrying the garbage bowl under his arm on the journey back.

Whatever the bug, it was still being purged.

In the bedroom Vin crawled back under the quilt in stoical silence. He was not a weepy child, habitually took life’s brickbats, large and small, without self-pity. Josiah had often wished it wasn’t so. Some time after ten, Vin took a few sips of warm water, which stayed down. Then he drifted into a doze, after muttering something about horses, and finally to sleep. Josiah sat in his peculiar hunched position on the bed with him for a while, just in case. None of the boys had been sick with anything for a time, and he’d forgotten what the anxiety felt like, the silly, irrational fears warring with experience and common sense. Vin looked little all bundled up in bed, feeling too rough to even bother with Trot. Josiah hated it.

“Get better, kiddo,” he murmured, couldn’t help reaching to rest his hand over one curled shoulder, hoping it wouldn’t disturb. “It’ll all be OK.”

He left the newly-rinsed garbage bowl close to the sleeping boy’s elbow, then extracted himself and padded down to the kitchen to make some fresh coffee. 

By the weekend Vin was back on his feet, but he wasn’t a whole lot better. 

“Give him a week, he’ll brighten up,” the doctor said. She seemed to have had ample experience of this strain of whatever it was. “Keep him off school for another day or two, just to make sure, because with this one symptoms sometimes recur.”

Chris had stayed home with Vin on the Friday, said he had enough time owing, which also covered Monday. Josiah arrived home from work to find them both crashed out asleep in front of the TV, Vin’s head pillowed against Chris’s upper arm. Nathan, still with his coat on, was sitting quietly in a chair across the room from the two of them, and he was nursing a split lip.

Josiah did a double-take on him, and then his stomach plunged. He ran his eyes swiftly over the sleepers, decided they were fine where they were for the time being. Then he jerked his thumb towards the door and the kitchen. Nathan tipped himself gloomily out of the chair.

“You thinking you might let me know now?” Josiah asked, clapping a hand on his shoulder outside the door, and steering him down the hallway.

When they got into the kitchen and Josiah flipped all the lights on, Nathan just stood over by the sink touching his fingers to his swollen face and saying nothing.

“Oh, and you know I won’t buy that you ran into a door, don’t you?” Josiah had told himself to pitch it all calm and easy, not let his emotions run away with him like they threatened to do.

“Yeah.” Nathan looked rueful.

“So? You get into a fight?” It seemed hard to believe.

Nathan snorted a bitter laugh. “Not exactly.”

“Someone hit you though.”

“Yeah. I dared ’em.” The teenager lifted his left hand, showed Josiah the knuckles, bruised and red. “And then I hit ’em back.”

Chris had been suspended from school once for hitting out in just such circumstances, and Josiah always felt they’d been lucky seeing as the incident had hardly been an isolated one. Buck had punched another kid for hassling a girl in his class, too, but that had been unusual, and dealt with by a wise Principal who could see beyond the mewling of the injured party. Both of the older boys had tempers and had spent their early years being on the wrong end of other people’s. Nathan, though... much as he liked his kick-boxing and karate - he was the most equable of the five, always an intelligent advocate of peace and moderation.

Josiah mentally slapped himself for not interfering sooner.

“You been having a hard time?”

Nathan looked up then, couldn’t avoid Josiah’s eyes. “Yeah. Just a bunch of jerks.” He made a face, then winced as it pulled at the cut. “Guess I snapped.”

“And what have this bunch of jerks been doing?”

“Oh, mouthing off. You know.”

“Mouthing off like how?”

A new tension stiffened Nathan’s jaw. “Stuff you wouldn’t like.”

Josiah’s brows hiked. “Tell me more.” He indicated the table, and was glad the youth accepted the invitation, shucked out of his coat before dropping into the nearest chair. Staying on his feet but leaning casually against the sink, Josiah calculated they had about ten minutes at best before Buck returned with J.D. from After School Club.

“So,” he encouraged. “These jerks?”

“Heck, Josiah, I ain’t even gonna tell you some of the things... it’s all how I’m too black, or you’re too white... some crap like that. Just a bunch of jerks, gotta keep telling me what they think I am, or what they think you are, calling Vin a retard, saying we’re all rejects and losers. Else bugging my friends... trashing my locker. Just crappy second grade stuff.”

Josiah swallowed hard against the combined fury and guilt that suddenly burned in his chest.

“How long has this been going on? Have you reported it?”

“A month maybe. And no.”

“Because why?”

“Because I thought it would stop. Because I didn’t want to worry you, especially not with... And yeah, before you ask, it’s probably why I haven’t been studying so hard. Which is... OK, kinda stupid.”

“Hard to concentrate when there are jerks on the loose. That’s what I find, anyhow.”

Nathan almost grinned but then winced again. He touched the cut delicately. “I miss studying.”

“You should have told me before. Hell, no... that’s not it. I should have asked before. I’m sorry, Nate....”

“We don’t need it.” There was a little tremor of emotion in Nathan’s voice now. Just a touch of fear, too.

“No,” Josiah agreed, keeping his own voice level with some effort. “But whatever happens tomorrow, you’re still my boy – for keeps - and it’s still my responsibility to help out when there’s a problem.”

“Yeah, well I thought it would just... you know, stop. It’s gotta get boring, right, being a jerk?”

“You’d think.” Josiah tapped his fingers on the table top. “But we have to deal with it, whether you report them or I go in and talk to... whoever. We’re not going to do nothing though.”

“This is going to swell up.” Nathan touched his mouth again.

Josiah eyed him balefully. The avoidance technique was worthy of Vin. “Just as well it’s only me due in court then. You want some ice?”

They both heard the sound of tires on the driveway then. “Nah, I’ll do it.” Nathan pushed back his chair. 

“OK, but this isn’t over, right?”

“Right.”

Josiah stood up from his chair, ready to go and check if the two sleeping beauties were stirring. He paused in the doorway, watching Nathan dumping ice into a cloth.

“Nate?”

“I’m listening.”

“If you hadn’t gotten hit, if it hadn’t been for... you know, the bleeding and all... would you have told me about this anytime soon?”

There was a long pause. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

Ah, honesty. Nathan would get him with that every time. 

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

Nathan shrugged, apologetic, but didn’t turn around.

There was a lot you could do to get kids to trust you enough to help, and Josiah had tried most of them over the years. It was hard work and not always rewarding. Chris, Nathan and Vin... all three of them, for totally different reasons, had always kept secrets. Heck, they’d driven Josiah crazy with it. Buck and J.D. though, they were much more likely to share.

“Maybe I need another kid who talks too much,” Josiah said, “just to even things out.”

He heard Nathan snort a laugh through his nose.

In the living room, Chris was awake, disturbed by the sound of Buck and J.D. arriving home.

“Hey,” he said thickly when he saw Josiah. He jiggled his arm slightly, indicated with his head. “He’s feeling pretty hot again.”

Josiah went down on his haunches by the couch. As Chris had begun to move, Vin had been stirred out of his slumber, and he was peering at him through red-rimmed eyes, the cheek nearest Josiah’s hand warmly pink and his mouth turned down at the corners. Josiah threaded his way through the strands of lank curls to find Vin’s forehead.

“Ouch,” he said. “Think it’s back to bed for you.”

Vin mumbled something. Then Chris pulled himself up, hauling Vin, still mumbling with him. Draping the boy over his shoulder like a saddle he led the way out of the room. They met Buck and J.D. coming along the hall.

“Damn,” Buck said.

J.D. gave Vin a circumspect once-over. Josiah could tell he was more interested in the fact that Chris was carrying Vin in what looked to him like a really cool way than he was in the fact that he was ill. “I’m hungry,” he said. “We having any dinner?”

From somewhere Josiah found a hand for the top of J.D.’s head. He was nothing if not skilled in spreading attention. And conveying instructions. It only took a nod in Buck’s direction and the eighteen year-old was pivoting on his toes back the way he’d come, ready to go raid the fridge for all their benefit. J.D., with a small look over his shoulder, trailed in his wake.

“We calling the doc?” Chris was asking as he rolled Vin into the bottom bunk once more, pulled the quilt up around him and rooted underneath for the garbage bowl.

“She did say this might happen.” Josiah rubbed the back of his neck. He leaned a hand on the bunk frame. “How’s the belly, son?”

“Don’t need that,” Vin said crossly, batting the bowl away.

“What do you need?”

“Juice.”

“Not such a good idea. Water?”

“Soda.”

“Water?”

Vin tossed his head away from them. “Whatever.”

Chris quirked a look in Josiah’s direction. “Cranky,” he said. “I’ll sit.” His hand was already digging for his cell.

Josiah was just coming out of the boys’ bedroom, when the telephone rang in the kitchen. He’d thought Buck was in there by now, pottering about, so he left it for a few rings. By the time he’d stirred himself to get there the caller, whoever it was, had rung off. By the sound of the water heater hissing, Buck had sent J.D. off with some kind of snack and was now in the shower.

“Root ginger?” Nathan said behind him, appearing round the door. 

“I beg your pardon?”

“For nausea. We got any?”

“Says who?” Josiah demanded, staring at the telephone receiver as if he expected it to ring again.

“Says me. You can make a tea with it, good for upset stomachs.”

“Think he’ll drink it?”

“Vin likes my tea,” Nathan said stoutly. That was true – Vin was about the only one who did.

From somewhere else in the house someone was calling. Josiah thought it was Vin at first, but the sound was too powerful, too shrill. As he got out into the hall he heard J.D. yelling.

“’Siah, it’s your phone! ‘Siah! Your phone!”

Half a second later, J.D. came clattering down the stairs with the cell in his hand, but it wasn’t ringing anymore. Josiah glanced at it with a frown.

‘Unknown Caller.’

Behind them came the sound of the kitchen phone ringing once again. 

“What the...” Josiah muttered.

It rang off as Nathan apparently got to it. Then came another shout. This one held the kind of urgency that made Josiah’s gut feel like it was full of icy water.

He found himself hurrying up the woodblock hallway, a pulse of anxiety beating in his head. And he wasn’t even sure why. All the boys were here. They were here, safe. All the boys.

Nathan had the receiver pressed to his ear when Josiah came in, his eyes full of worry. “Slow down, slow down, he’s coming,” he was saying, mouth close to the phone set. “Who’d you say’s outside?” He sucked in a breath, his brow furrowed. “But where are you... you gotta tell us where you are...” His eyes flicked to Josiah and he thrust the phone at his outstretched hand, face distraught, mouthing a single, silent word.

“Ezra?” Josiah said as soon as he got his mouth to the receiver. 

His own voice echoed, bouncing back at him from out of the ether. It felt as if he were talking into a void, endlessly wide. He could almost envisage the miles and miles of phone cable stretching through the dark between him and the child he knew without a doubt was on the other end of the line.

 _“Josiah said... he said...”_ It sounded like Ezra all right, although speaking faster than usual. The voice was its same accented drawl though, right now pitched somewhere between accusation and distrust. The line behind it crackled as if there was a storm brewing. Nathan had turned and gone. Josiah was vaguely aware of him hollering for Chris, the bang of his fist on the downstairs bathroom door.

“It’s me, Ezra,” he said into the phone set, trying to zone out the other noises. “Josiah. I’m here, I’m listening.”

A breath was sucked in at the other end.

_“Don’t call the police on me.”_

Josiah screwed up his face as if he’d been stung. Even with the quality of the line, the belligerence was clear. Ezra didn’t sound at all like a young child in a panic. He seemed full of his habitual bravado but, despite the disconcertingly forthright tone, Josiah was unconvinced. There was fear behind the bluster, too.

“Where are you?” he said, voice clogged. 

_“Don’t get me picked up.”_ A pause. _“You need to come, Josiah. You said you’d come.”_

Never mind the cops, for now. Josiah needed the where, first and foremost. 

“Where are you calling from?”

_“You won’t call the police?”_

“Not if you tell me where you are.”

_“You better not.”_

“I won’t.” 

_“It’s a phone booth, but I’m hiding because....”_ The voice hitched, trailed off into silence for several seconds, but then resumed with a forced confidence that made Josiah’s free hand clench. _“There’s a Motel-6... I see the sign. You said...”_

“Ezra, I can come for you, I can, but you gotta tell me where.” Josiah didn’t know how he managed not to shout it. 

_“Texas?”_ It was a question, as if Ezra wondered if Josiah would believe him, as if he hardly believed it himself.

“Where – exactly – in Texas? Ezra? Come on now, stay with me... there’s gotta be a hundred of those motels in Texas – which town, what’s the phone booth number?” Josiah was digging his nails into his palm, willing the call not to drop out, willing Ezra to just tell him.

Faintly there came the sound of scrabbling, as if Ezra was moving around in a small space. _“I don’t know, I don’t know. It’s dark.”_

Josiah shut his eyes. “Look around you, son. Tell me something, anything.”

 _“A road bridge.”_ The response was immediate. Ezra, Josiah remembered, was observant. He was also sadly no stranger to traveling cross-country by himself. _“It’s a big highway. Looks like... 287... I think. And this is... this is...”_ More scrabbling. _“This is Broad Street but the number’s scraped off... Josiah?”_ The voice had changed again.

“I’m here.”

_“Listen, I think... I think I need to go, I’ll call you again.”_

“Ez-” Josiah began, knowing it was fruitless. He’d wanted to ask if Ezra was in danger, if he was hurt. The line went dead before he even got the name out. And then he was standing alone in the kitchen, utterly helpless, with the receiver balanced in his hand, the brief connection lost. 

Moments later the boys were there, filling up the space. Buck in a towel, dripping water all over the floor, with Chris and Nathan flanking him and J.D. hopping about in their wake.

“What’s going on?” Buck demanded. “Nate said it was Ezra.”

Josiah dropped the phone set back on its cradle. His mind was beginning to race, quicker even than his heart which was still thumping against his ribs.

“He just called from... Texas. From a phone booth somewhere in Texas, for crying out loud. And he’s in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” Chris’s tone was gruff.

Josiah shrugged at him, shoulders tight. “Said he’d call again. He asked me to come get him. And not to call the police.”

“But you will, right?” Nathan said, ever the law-abiding.

“He trusts me not to.”

“What?” Nathan was aghast. “But he’s only nine! If he’s in some kind of trouble, the police have gotta kn-”

“Where the Hell in Texas?” Buck demanded, cutting right through him. 

Josiah half raised his hand to stop Nathan cutting back in. “Hell knows. He said he was near a Motel-6 on Broad Street somewhere, and close to highway 287.”

“We can find it,” Buck said firmly. 

“All right then,” Nathan agreed cautiously, already fishing out his phone. “But what happens then?”

“We go get him.” Chris was unequivocal. “Now, tonight.”

“If you interfere,” Nathan said, posing the question directly to Josiah, fingers busy on the keypad, “what will that mean about... other stuff? Like tomorrow?”

Josiah knew why his insides were churning. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Buck’n me’ll go,” Chris said. “You can’t miss the hearing.”

“I have to be the one to go find Ezra.”

“We can do it, Josiah.”

“I’m not saying you can’t. I’m just saying it won’t look good. If there’s any responsibility here it’s mine... I set myself up for it when I took him in, same as when I took in all of you. Isn’t that what tomorrow’s all about?”

Tomorrow.

“What’s happening?” J.D.’s plaintive voice asked, worried. “Is there something wrong about tomorrow?”

“Nothing’s wrong, squirt,” Buck said at once, turning to him. “Look, let’s you and I go and make sure Vin’s all right.” He nudged the little boy back out of the kitchen door, murmuring with meaningful emphasis to Josiah, “I’ll go get dressed.”

Josiah wanted to dispute his clear intention to jump in the car and drive to Texas, but it felt like there were too many fights going on all at once. 

“OK,” Nathan was saying, eyes squinted at the little screen of his cell. “So there’s one in Wichita Falls, near the Sheppard Air Force base, right on highway 287. Broad Street address. Could be the one.” Across the room Chris, eyes narrowed, was chewing his bottom lip. Nathan looked up at him, and then at Josiah. “That’s what? Ten hours away?”

“Listen.” Chris’s voice was a growl. “You’re not supposed to do long-distance night-driving, Josiah. It’s _verboten_ – you said so after your last appointment. I get that you have to be the one to go fetch Ezra, but Buck’n’me gotta be the ones to drive it.”

“I’ll be fine with the little guys,” Nathan said. “And don’t worry about Vin. I’ll keep a real good eye on him, I promise, and J.D. I can call Mrs. Wells if I have to. And I can do whatever needs to be done.”

“You know how this is going to play out, don’t you?” Josiah asked them. He was going to do it, he was certain by now. There was no doubt in his mind that he was about to hare off into the dark unknown under the terms his older boys had laid out for him. He wasn’t at all sure they realized the implications, though – the likely dovetail of all their problems and plans into one big, steaming, mess. “Not only am I bailing on our hearing... heck, I’m going to be pokin’ my nose in a situation the agencies will say has nothing to do with me... not to mention leaving a little kid and a sick child alone with a minor.”

Chris waved away the speech in impatience. 

“You said we might have to fight for him,” he said. “Bottom line is.. kid could be in danger. Wherever else he’s supposed to be right now, the middle of Texas alone in the dark ain’t it.”

“All right all right, I’m not arguing.” Josiah took a deep breath. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

He left the older boys getting themselves ready, observed by an excitable J.D., rang Nettie Wells to alert her she might be needed, changed his clothes, then threw some road-trip essentials into a small bag – snacks, drinks, cellphone charger, CDs, and a first aid kit which Nathan put together for him along with a running commentary about what to use when.

“Who’s the adult around here anyhow?” Josiah asked, grumpy.

“For now, me. Looks like.” 

Rubbing his forehead, Josiah tried not to forget anything. “I’ll text school, say you won’t be in tomorrow. If Leila calls, you say as little as you can get away with, tell her to talk to me if she has to. I’ll contact Christina and the court soon as it opens in the morning, tell ‘em... something. And Hell, you guys need to eat.”

“I got it,” Nathan said. “J.D.’ll be happy with noodles, right? And Vin don’t want to eat anyhow.”

“He’s had a dose of Tylenol which should kick in soon. The cherry flavor’s run out but there’s a new bottle of grape in the bathroom cabinet. If his fever gets any higher, or he gets sick again...”

“Yeah, I know, I’ll call in the troops. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it. You have your cell – I’ll keep you posted.”

Josiah stared at him for a second, heart full. “All right,” he said, hoisting the bag over his shoulder. “You are really... something, you know that?”

“Wheels up in five!” Buck yelled from the hallway where he was jogging up and down with J.D. squealing under his arm. As Josiah passed him on the way to Vin he wondered if he should remind him not to get the little boy all worked up and red in the face before bed, but it seemed like the least of their problems. Vin, though. Vin was right up there.

“You get what’s going on, right?” he asked when he came in and squished himself on to the bottom bunk.

Heavy-eyed, Vin gave him a sluggish nod. “You’n’Chris’n’Buck are goin’ to Texas to git Ezra.”

“Think he needs us. I know you need us too, but at least we have Nathan here and it sounds like Ezra hasn’t got anyone right now.”

“He run away?”

A perceptive question. Josiah gave an unwilling shrug. “I don’t know what he’s done, just that he’s on his own a long way from... well a long way from where he’s safe.”

“When you bring’m back, can he stay?”

“We’ll see.” Much as he wanted Ezra here, under his care, Josiah didn’t intend to turn himself into a kidnapper.

Vin seemed groggy, almost resigned to things going badly, although Josiah hoped that was the illness talking. “And when you miss tomorrow, does that mean we don’t get ’doption - not ever?”

Josiah reached to run the back of his knuckles gently across the hot face, not knowing what to say. The boy went on in a slightly feverish ramble.

“Cops and people in the home and... all the people... if they get mad with you fer it, they gonna take me away?”

Over my dead body, Josiah thought, but all he did was move to straighten up the crumpled quilt and sheets.

“No,” was all he said in a firm voice. “And you have to not worry, try and get some rest. You’ll be fine long as you stay in bed and let Nathan take care of you. We’re only a phone call away and we’ll be back soon as we can.”

“Ezra gonna sleep in this bed?” Vin mumbled. “Like before?”

“Let’s worry about sleeping arrangements later, all right?” He patted the side of Vin’s face. Already the SUV engine was running – he could hear it outside the window. “Take it easy.”

He had to force himself to stand up and leave. In the kitchen Nathan had a bunch of Chinese takeout menus fanned out on the table and J.D. was sorting through them with a critical eye.

“Don’t be late to bed, John Dunne,” Josiah said to him, ruffling his hair. “And be good. Do as Nathan tells you.”

He was grateful that, for the moment at least, J.D. was quite thrilled that the evening was going to be different to usual, and hadn’t yet remembered that he hated, up to and including hysteria, Josiah not being there at bedtime. 

Josiah gave Nathan a last nod and left the kitchen. Outside the temperature had dropped dramatically, even since he’d left the university campus. Winter was right around the corner and he and the boys had automatically brought their thick coats with them. He tried not to think about what Ezra might or might not be wearing, tried not to remember that the damned kid seemed to have an aversion to warm, utilitarian clothing, could well be out in the elements right now looking neat as a new pin but without essentials for the season like a coat, hat and gloves.

Chris was behind the wheel, Buck in the back.

His stomach nearly in his boots about what he was doing and what it might mean, Josiah climbed in the front passenger seat and slammed shut the door. 

“Let’s ride,” Buck said, slapping his thighs with his hands, and Chris gunned the engine, sent the SUV skidding down the driveway and on to the road with a bump.

*

It was just after eight when they hit I-70, then some ninety miles later the turning towards Kit Carson. As the sign flashed past them in the headlights, Josiah heard Buck’s soft laugh from behind his ear, had the impression that Chris had suddenly grinned, and then become serious again.

“Vin was tellin’ J.D. about the frontier and scouts and sh- stuff,” Buck explained and Josiah’s main thought was that at least it meant Vin was reading Nettie Wells’ book at last. 

“And was he impressed?” Josiah would find that hard to believe since J.D. was generally impressed by Power Rangers and not much else at the moment.

“Let’s say he preferred the page on gunfighters.”

“Figures.” Josiah glanced at the silent face of his cell for about the fiftieth time since they’d pulled out of the drive, and then sideways at the lights and shadows flickering across the side of Chris’s face. The young man’s jaw was tight in concentration, as it had been since he learned about the phone call. He’d hardly said a word since the beginning of the journey, only grunting when Buck tried to engage him. He knew Josiah was regarding him, though. 

“I’m good,” Chris said in answer to the unspoken question. “When we stop for gas I’ll let Buck take over.”

Josiah stared straight ahead again. For a while he looked into the dark ahead of them, the steady, red tail-lights winding away in the distance. 

_Wish he’d call._

He didn’t say it. There were so many reasons that could explain why Ezra hadn’t called back, and Josiah didn’t like most of them. One hand clenched and then relaxed in his lap.

It was Chris’s turn to glance over at him. “Hang in there,” he said, voice scratchy with the late hour and tiredness.

“He’s nine.” Josiah felt guilty at his weakness, at the slight snap in his tone, his need to speak his fears out loud. “Out alone in the dark and he hasn’t called back. He said he would and I just... don’t know.”

“Heck,” Buck said robustly, leaning forward between the two front seats. “He’ll have found himself some shelter, be hunkered down. You know Ezra.”

“Not really, no.” Josiah could hear the weight in his own voice. And it was true, too. He didn’t know Ezra at all. “Never got to find out what he hoped for, where he really wanted to be. Just that he didn’t seem to think he needed anyone else. But... if he called me the kid has to be desperate.”

“We’ll get to him,” Chris said in the same scratchy growl. 

They stopped for gas and for Chris and Buck to change over. Josiah walked around the deserted car lot at one side while Buck bought coffee. Nathan had called a while back to say J.D. was in bed asleep, but it seemed this was an optimistic assertion from a teenager who was walking a thin line between being honest and being protective. Even before the background noise of wailing kicked in Josiah had guessed as much.

 _“No you can’t talk to him,”_ Nathan had said, too damned bossy by half. _“It’ll just make him worse.”_

When Josiah called back from the car-lot it all sounded quiet at the house.

 _“He really is asleep this time,”_ Nathan assured him and Josiah gave him the benefit of the doubt this time. _“I’m looking at him right now. And he’s asleep. Listen, I can text you a picture.”_

“I believe you,” Josiah said. “How about Vin?”

There was a pause at the other end of the line. Josiah completed his circuit of the north side of the car-lot and turned to look across it. He could see Chris and Buck standing alongside the SUV, two shadows leaning into one another, collars turned up against the cold. There was steam rising from their coffee cups. Unless, of course, that coil of silvery gray against the black was cigarette smoke. Which might have seemed important twenty four hours ago, but somehow didn’t now.

“Nathan?”

_“OK so he’s awake. Kinda feverish still, but not scary hot.”_

“Still being sick?”

_“Well... he was sitting up and saying he was hungry, wanted some of the noodles me and J.D. had, but... turns out that wasn’t such a good idea.”_

“But you’re not worried?”

Another pause. Josiah felt his jaw tighten, his resolve wavering. They were still further away from Wichita Falls than they were from Denver. He could call the cops, get the local force to try and trace the child. Maybe they were already on to it. Someone must know he’d gone missing by now. If Josiah obliged the boys to turn right around now and drive home he could be back in time to make the hearing in the morning and look after Vin, just as he was supposed to. He owed it to all of them and Vin was his direct responsibility, after all. His boy. Ezra Standish wasn’t either of those things and, in the eyes of all those busybodies working on the case, Josiah owed him nothing.

 _“Yeah I’m worried.”_ Nathan was so much more confident when he was being honest. _“But that doesn’t mean you should come back. He’s just sick.”_

Just sick. Just nine, just left at home without a responsible adult.

“Do you think you should call Nettie?”

An impatient huff. _“I already did that and listen, if she’s worried too I’ll call you again, all right? Where are you at anyhow?”_

Distracted, Josiah looked around him. “At a gas station. We’re on 87.” He switched the cell from one hand to another, dragged down his heavy coat sleeve and squinted at his watch. “Lord, it’s midnight. You should be asleep yourself.”

 _“I’m fine.”_ Nathan didn’t sound fine. He sounded tired. _“You heard from Ezra?”_

“No.”

Distinctly, gloomily, Nathan sighed. _“Damn,”_ he said. _“Will you let me know? You know, one way or another, if there’s... anything?”_

“Nate, you need to get to bed.”

_“Yeah, and so do you guys. I’m worried for Pete’s sake! I heard how he sounded.”_

“Yeah.” Josiah squashed down his fears. They were a knotty, painful mess of what-ifs and possibilities, made knottier with each passing hour of silence from Texas. He couldn’t afford to let them run away with him, though, not yet, not with youngsters like Nathan relying on him to be strong. Buck was looking over in his direction now, tapping his own watch. “Gotta go, Nate. You get to bed. Nettie can sit with Vin.”

 _“Well maybe.”_ Nathan sounded reluctant. Tired as he was, he’d taken on the mantle of sole carer with a typical determination to see it through. _“But you still need to call me. Don’t not call me.”_

“OK. All right.” Josiah was soothing, although he was wondering just how pissed at him Nathan would be if he didn’t.

_“All right.”_

Ending the call, Josiah began back across the lot towards the SUV. Buck had climbed in behind the wheel and Chris was waiting with the front passenger door open, like a chauffeur. Josiah caught the faint whiff of tobacco smoke as he got up close. Chris, eyes gleaming in the dark, just gave him a look, recognizing the disapproval and brazening it out, and handed him a styrofoam cup.

“We good to go?” he asked, voice scratchier than ever.

“J.D’s sleeping, Vin’s rough, Nettie’s on the case.”

Josiah glanced over at Buck as he settled in the front passenger seat once again. “You all right?” The door banged shut.

“Black coffee, plenty of sugar,” Buck replied. He indicated the paper sack between the seats. “You keep feeding me, reckon I can go through to Wichita, no problem.” He looked over his shoulder as Chris got into the back, and then back at Josiah, who blew out his cheeks. Buck narrowed his eyes, frowned at him. “But if we’re bailing on this, you’d better tell me now.”

“I’m not bailing,” Josiah retorted, a little sharp once again. “Just...”

“We’re doing the right thing,” Chris said to him, just as sharp. 

The authorities wouldn’t think so. Josiah felt a heavy burden of guilt about that already. He buried his nose in his coffee cup as the SUV pulled out of the gas station back on to the highway.

*

About an hour later they crossed into Texas.

Josiah had spent a while formulating in his mind what he was going to say to Leila Beverley next time he spoke to her. Worrying at the questions he’d failed to ask her about Ezra when they met in Costco. Then, almost manic, he’d run through his version of why he’d skipped town and not turned up at the county court for the adoption hearing. He’d waited, fingers tapping his thigh nervously, for Nathan to call and tell him Vin was peacefully asleep. Or for Nettie to call and tell him the same thing, and that Nathan was asleep too. After a while, since the call didn’t come, he had to force his mind away, try and concentrate on the here and now. Try and breathe, not fret over how time was passing.

He listened idly to Buck and Chris talking, in short, soft sentences. It was as if they were communicating in code and he knew the gist of their conversation wasn’t for his ears. He really wasn’t concentrating on the thread of the talk anyhow, just on the cadence of the two voices. Road signs flashed before his eyes and then he heard Buck’s third repetition of _Is This the Way (to Amarillo)?_ cut short by a warning snarl from Chris. His eyelids were heavy and although he didn’t want to close his eyes, convinced of the need to stay alert for the whole journey, there was nothing he could do except blink against the tug of sleep until gradually they began to drop.

He was out of it, with his head on the side window, when his cellphone blared in his lap. At first the vibration didn’t do much other than faintly irritate. Like the hum of the engine or the occasional light show from a Mack truck passing in the opposite direction.

“Hey,” he vaguely heard through the fog.

Then his elbow was jostled, causing his cheek to flatten against the glass.

With a jolt, Josiah’s eyes flew open. He had his cell to his ear before he even focused properly.

It was quarter to four in the morning, still pitch dark. They were on 287 by now, headed in the direction of Forth Worth, and there was at least another couple of hours’ driving to go before they hit Wichita Falls.

“Nathan?”

 _“Hey,”_ came Nathan’s voice, soft through the miles.

“What’s going on?”

This time there was no hesitation. _“Listen, I’m sorry to call but... we think maybe we should take Vin down to the Emergency Room.”_

Josiah felt an icy calm descend on him. He sat up straight in the seat, aware that Chris was right at his shoulder. “Tell me.”

_“No need to panic, Miz Wells says.”_

“I’m not panicking.” 

_“Yeah, he’s gotten sorta... confused.”_

“How confused?” 

_“Oh, just not real sure where he is, that kinda thing. The Tylenol doesn’t seem to have done much, so it might be a good idea for a doctor to look at him we reckon. I checked for a rash. There’s nothing, but his head does seem to be hurting. Miz Wells’ll drive us. We called ahead and I’m about to go wake J.D., get him dressed.”_

Good Lord but Nathan sounded grown up. 

“OK.” Josiah swallowed. “Good boy. I think you’re doing the right thing.”

_“I’ll call when we get there, you know... when there’s something to say.”_

Josiah flapped his free hand at a sign for gas and restaurants and Buck obediently began to slow.

“All right, and Nate-?”

_“Wait a sec, I c’n hear J.D.... I’d better go. Don’t worry, we’ll call you. Vin will be fine.”_

Josiah didn’t get a chance to ask any more questions. Nathan was not only sounding grown up, he was sounding calmer and more in control of himself than Josiah felt. “Yeah, OK, OK,” he said into nothingness, “‘bye.” 

He dropped the cell back in his lap, stared forward through the windshield at the upcoming lights. Buck eased up, brought the SUV to a smooth halt under a row of trees and then shifted round to look squarely at his foster father.

“Vin?” he asked.

“Worse. They’re taking him in to the hospital.”

Buck’s hands tightened around the wheel but he didn’t say anything straight off. 

“God damnit!” Chris burst out from behind, and Josiah found his soothing voice once again, foolishly thinking it would be enough.

“It’s just precautionary. Nathan says we’re not to panic, and I trust him.”

He took a breath, the decision twisting in his gut. “But we need to turn around.”

“Jesus, Josiah!” Chris’s voice of absolute, furious protest was a surprise.

“I can’t just be... AWOL with one of my kids rushed into the ER,” Josiah said, knowing the tightness in his tone was an indicator of a battle against frustration.

“Just precautionary,” Chris bit out. “You said so!”

“He hasn’t called,” Josiah said, not able to say Ezra’s name he felt so guilty. “Maybe he isn’t even where he said by now. How the Hell are we supposed to find him? We could have come all this way and just have to turn right around and go back anyhow. I can’t... I can’t not be with Vin.”

“OK, OK.” Buck lifted his hands from the wheel. “It’ll be daylight soon. You turn around, get back to Denver. Chris and me’ll find a way to get to Wichita Falls.”

“I told you.” Josiah was grim. “You two can’t interfere in this. If anyone’s going looking for Ezra, then it has to be me.”

“Exactly,” Chris growled. “Nathan’s got Vin’s back. You said yourself you trust him. We’re a couple hours away from where Ezra called. And Hell... suppose he’s hunkered down, like Buck said... suppose he’s there waiting for you, Josiah. You can’t just not come. You promised him.” 

Josiah had nothing to say to that. He had no defense, none at all. And this when Chris hadn’t even laid it on as thick as he could have. Nothing about the cold, the silence, the vulnerability. Both Buck and Chris had reckoned Ezra might ‘hunker down’ somewhere, keep himself safe, but deep in his gut Josiah didn’t believe it for a moment. Not because he didn’t trust Ezra to think of it, or be capable, but because he feared there might be other unknown obstacles the stranded nine year-old had to face. Ones the initial call had only hinted at.

He raked his knuckles under his beard, then dragged his whole hand down the back of his neck, trying and failing to ease some of the knots.

“You’re right,” he said. “I can’t just not turn up. I need to find him.” He peered through the window. “Let me make a rest stop. Then I’m taking over. It’ll be light soon and I need... I need something to do.”

He was aware that Buck and Chris exchanged a look, that they were unwilling, protective. Something filled Josiah’s chest. They had never quite envisaged this, he and Hannah, when they decided they wanted to build a new family from the wreckage of their own. That somehow, somewhere along the way, the difficult boys they took in would turn around and start taking care of them. 

“I could use another cup of coffee,” Chris said, giving him an out.

“I’m on it.” Josiah got his hand to the door. The outside air was cool, a shock to the system. He shivered and pulled his coat round him as picked a way along to the men’s room, its battered sign illuminated by a harsh white light. In the mirror above the faucet he glanced at his own drawn features, the gray marks of fatigue under his eyes. Lord, if the dean at the university could see him now. Or Leila at Social Services. Or the judge at the childrens county court.

He downed some coffee himself before taking over from Buck. There was a faint washed-out light of coming dawn through the trees and Josiah hoped his eyes would cope.

“Here,” he said and tossed his cell across the car to Buck who’d climbed into the passenger seat. He was gruff and commanding. “I’m telling you this though - one more word of bad news and I turn right around.”

“Just go,” Chris muttered from behind, impatient at the tone of voice. “Aren’t you always telling us not to buy trouble?”

A reluctant smile tweaked the corner of Josiah’s mouth. He could feel caffeine racing around his system. “That I am,” he agreed. “That I am.”

*

They made into the outskirts of Wichita Falls by just after six-twenty. Nathan had called half an hour before to tell them they were still waiting on a doctor but that Vin was holding his own so far. The hospital, he said, had seemed suspicious when they learned the responsible adult in the case wasn’t even in Colorado. So far he and Nettie Wells had managed to keep Child Services at bay between them.

“But that might not last long,” he’d said, pessimistic.

Josiah had the crawling, unpleasant thought that he might just end up grievously letting down all his kids at once, with one foolish move. And maybe even losing the younger ones. If Vin, Nathan and J.D. got taken back into the maelstrom of Social Services because their foster father was absent, evading the law on behalf of a runaway in another state.... it just didn’t bear thinking about. They’d fall apart. And on top of that it seemed like Ezra had slipped from sight before Josiah had even gotten the chance to offer him real sanctuary.

Chirpy local radio news was telling them it had been a chilly night and even though temperatures were picking up now today was likely to be well below the seasonal average for north central Texas.

The first exit off 287 brought them swinging straight down on to Broad Street.

“Lucky break,” Buck observed sleepily.

It was shallow men who believed in luck, Josiah seemed to remember. 

“There it is,” came Chris’s familiar early morning rasp from the back. 

The big, red ‘6’ was right ahead of them. And about a hundred yards further down the street, on the other side from the main reception building, was a public telephone booth.

Josiah blinked, making sure.

Motel-6, just as Ezra had said. Just as he had seen. The booth he’d called from.

Somehow Josiah felt a plunge of disappointment not to see the boy sitting on the dusty sidewalk next to it, with his hair brushed and his misleadingly sweet face smug. He scanned the street in both directions as the SUV rolled to a halt.

Stiff and over-anxious, bones chilled from inactivity, the three of them climbed out of the car. Buck went straight into the booth, lifted the handset. He looked at the floor, scoured the glass sides.

“Nothin’.”

Josiah didn’t know what he expected. A message, perhaps? Or some sign that would confirm.... something. When Buck came out, he went in, looked over the same things, aware that Chris was poking about in the undergrowth behind the booth. It was just as Ezra had said last night. The number had been rubbed off. He listened for a dial tone. There seemed no reason why Ezra couldn’t have made another call from here, if he’d been able. Even if he’d called collect, which would seem a very Ezra thing to do. 

But there’d been no call. Not from here or from anywhere else.

Chris knocked on the glass. He jerked his head towards the Motel, raised his brows. Josiah gritted his teeth, nodded.

They got back in the SUV, drove into the lot.

“He was never gonna be there, waiting for us,” Buck said to break the silence. “This has gotta be our best bet.”

“I’ll go ask in the office.” Josiah glanced at the silent face of his cell once more, and then up at the long windows of the main motel building. “You boys want to take a look around?”

In the lobby all was quiet. Josiah walked across the coldly shining brown tiles, past the single couch, microfridge and coffee machine with its winking orange light. 

“Good morning!” trilled a bright voice. “May I help you, sir?”

Good Lord. Josiah couldn’t think of a single question he could ask that wouldn’t result in the police being called. Various outlandish scenarios came to mind but he decided that probably honesty was the best policy. Well, up to a point.

“Excuse me for asking,” he said as politely as he could. “I’m trying to trace someone I think was near here last night. I don’t suppose you or any of your colleagues have seen a youngster hanging around? I’m not a cop or anything like that. Kid’s probably at home by now, but... you know, just checking... for a neighbor.”

The young guy at reception weighed him up. “I just came on shift so I can’t help you with that. I’m sorry. It’s not really the kind of place youngsters hang around.” He smiled. “Why would they, y’know? Not much to do. How old’s your neighbor’s kid?”

“He’s nine. Wanders quite a bit.”

Surprise crossed his face. “Oh,” he said. “I thought you were talking about a teen. I didn’t think you meant a kid kid.”

“So,” Josiah pursued, casual. “If you just arrived... has the night shift gone home?”

“Trina left ten minutes ago but she’d’ve been here from eleven. May be having breakfast at the Drive Inn on 13th I guess. It’s just round the corner. She’ll still have her badge on if you’re looking for her.” He indicated his own, pinned in his maroon jacket lapel. 

Josiah nodded. “Well thank you,” he said, wondering how suspicious he looked in his crumpled clothing and with the air of not having slept. 

“Sorry not to be more help. Hope you find the kid.”

“I’m sure we will.”

Outside in the lot the sun was newly bright. Chris was standing by the SUV, this time not even bothering to hide the cigarette, and Buck was nowhere to be seen. There were three other cars and an old style campervan parked nearby but the Motel clearly wasn’t busy.

“Anything?” he asked as Josiah came close.

“Night shift’s already gone, might be in the diner up the road.” Josiah sighed. 

Chris drew on the cigarette, blew out smoke and sucked his teeth. “Diner,” he repeated. “That sounds good.”

“Yeah.”

They collected Buck from his wanderings around the site, found themselves a window table at the Drive Inn. The normality of ordering breakfast – even the necessity of it – made Josiah twitchy.

“Drink your coffee,” Buck said, eyeing him. “Looks like our night shift sitting right over there. I’ll go make nice.” He grinned provokingly at Chris who shook his head. Trina the night shift, still in her maroon jacket, was blonde, lipsticked, and barely over twenty.

“If there’s anything to know,” Chris said wryly, “Buck’ll winkle it out.”

Josiah had taken his first swallow of pancake, was just acknowledging how much his body needed sustenance, when his cell vibrated. Across the table, face stubbled and eyes bloodshot, Chris watched him take the call.

It was Nathan.

The doctor had come, he said, and Vin was having some tests. They’d pushed through some fluid and were on to the next stage.

“What kind of tests?” Josiah demanded, his voice strangled by worry and pancake.

_“Blood. Urine. Maybe a... maybe a spinal tap.”_

“Oh shit,” Josiah said, much too loudly for the waitress who’d just brought over the coffee jug. “Shit, shit.” He looked helplessly at Chris. “I should be there.”

Nathan didn’t contradict him. _“We’re doing okay,”_ he said cautiously. He sounded a little stunned, like his fifteen year-old fortitude was about used up after eleven hours on the case. _“How about you?”_

“Nothing,” Josiah said, swallowing away another lump. “He’s not here.” His fist clenched in his lap. He felt a wave of despair, had a sudden, wayward desire for a shot of Bourbon. “Of course he’s not damn well here.”

For a moment Nathan didn’t respond. Perhaps he was trying to think of the best thing to say, or perhaps he was just too weary. Then, eventually, he said, _“You made the calls?”_

Josiah pulled himself from his gloom. Nathan might be weary, but he could still see all the balls in the air, wasn’t going to risk any of them hitting the ground.

His eyes strayed over the diner to where Buck, leaning with casual insouciance over the back of the leatherette booth seat where Trina was sitting, was managing to look both serious and flirtatious at the same time. “I’ll call Christina at home. She’s gotta be awake by now, right?”

 _“What you gonna tell her?”_ The question was genuinely curious.

“That Vin’s sick. That I’m out of town... unexpectedly. On my way back.”

Nathan, as well as being instinctively conscientious, didn’t suffer fools gladly. _“I think you should just tell her exactly why you’re not there. She knows about Ezra doesn’t she?”_

Just the bare minimum in truth. She’d requested as much, counseling that they needed to move in careful, clear stages, not muddy the waters.

“You’re right, prevarication doesn’t seem like a real smart move at this stage,” Josiah conceded. As long as he was upfront with her, he was pretty sure she’d reciprocate by doing her damnedest to move for a continuance. Keep them afloat a while longer. “And the doc on Vin’s case? Am I going to get to talk to him?”

 _“Um, that would be another her,”_ Nathan said, slight glee in his voice. 

“Okay, her. She cool? Or is she going to hang us out to dry?”

The slight spark in Chris’s eyes over the table as he shoveled in his breakfast and listened to the one-sided conversation showed appreciation in Josiah’s suspicious line of thinking. Not for the first time, Josiah was flooded with profound gratitude that, by accident or design, he’d found all these boys. Or they’d found him.

 _“I think she’s so frazzled she hasn’t gotten around to putting Social Care on your ass yet.”_ Nathan was suitably blunt. _“She’ll talk to you, although... you might get a piece of her mind.”_

“I don’t doubt it. Give her my number. Or if she doesn’t like that, tell her I’ll call.” He steeled himself. “How urgent is the tap?”

_“At the moment I think it’s down the line, depends on what the other tests turn up. But Miz Wells says they’ll need consent.”_

“I don’t want them doing it without me there.”

_“Unless they have to.”_

The idea of Vin being subjected to that while he was hundreds of miles away was like a lump of canker in Josiah’s gut. Just thinking of the boy’s courage and forbearance being tested in such an invasive way while the one he trusted the most was absent felt like a physical pain. But if they needed answers, if they needed to establish something and start treatment...

“I’ll see what the doc says. And how’s J.D. doing?”

_“Miz Wells is gonna take him to school. He’s cranky and sleepy but she says he’ll be better there than hangin’ round here.”_

“I’m about to text your school, say you won’t be in.” Josiah paused, blinked his prickly eyes. “You should get some rest.”

 _“Listen.”_ Nathan sounded faintly belligerent all of a sudden. _“I’m not gonna leave Vin alone, all right?”_

“All right.” Another wave of relief, guilt and utter fatigue sloshed over Josiah. He suddenly wasn’t sure he should drink anymore coffee, although he wondered how on earth he’d be fit to drive home. “And hey, I owe you one. Big time.”

 _“Just one?”_ came back Nathan’s voice.

“Yeah, all right. We can negotiate. You get on to that doctor for me, okay? And hang tight.”

There was a disbelieving hesitation. _“Josiah?”_

“Mm?”

_“Believe me, nobody says hang tight anymore.”_

“Thanks for letting me know.”

_“’kay. ‘bye.”_

As he finished the call, Buck was wending his way back to them. He slid into the seat next to Chris, put his hands on the table. Buck, of the three of them, seemed the most wide awake, but he wasn’t smiling.

“She didn’t see him.” He picked up a fork and stabbed at the remains of sausage on Chris’s plate. “Was on all night, although she might not have clocked on yet at the time Ezra made that call. She called the guy on before her and he didn’t see him either.” The forkful went in and Buck chewed on it, then swallowed. “She says most of the guests right now are seniors, there’s been no kids. Youngest people staying were maybe eighteen.” He shrugged.

Chris leaned back, slung his arm along the back behind Buck’s shoulders. “So what the Hell happened to him? Where’d he go?”

“Shit, it’s ten hours since he called us. Perhaps he decided to go back where he came from. Maybe the cops picked him up.” Buck gave Chris a meaningful look. “We could check.”

“No.” Chris shook his head. “I’m thinking Ezra didn’t want the cops involved because... well, because he’s in trouble, and ‘cause maybe he thinks it won’t help his ma.”

Josiah, although he knew well Chris Larabee was a young man of keen intellect who should probably be in college rather than working on a ranch, was impressed at the insight. It was the first time he’d thought of Ezra’s mother in all this, given she was behind bars and couldn’t do much. Now he remembered that for all the times she’d left her son behind or put him in danger through her actions, they always, implacably, worked as a team. 

“You’re right,” he said, unwilling. “But someone’s got to look for him. It may be time to call in help on this one.” He looked down at his cell winking in a patch of sunlight on the shiny table top. “Listen, guys. I have to call Christina. Nathan’s school. Leila. All the people. Then I have to try and speak to Vin’s doctor. I’m gonna go do that in the car, okay? And then...” He made an apologetic gesture.

“Go back?” Chris said at once, face set. “Really? After we came all this way? Jesus, Josiah... what the Hell?”

“Vin’s real sick, son. I mean it. Not like he was when we left. He needs me, you know? I really thought Ezra would call again... I thought we’d have something else to go on by the time we got here. But we have nothing.” He bent his head, rubbed fiercely at his forehead with the heels of his hands. “I don’t like this one damned bit either, but I’m going to put in a call to the local cops too. It’s the right thing to do.”

Buck glanced sideways at Chris, and elected to speak for him since he had clamped shut his jaw. “All right. Let me get some food. We’ll meet you back at the car in ten or fifteen.”

Digging in his pocket for some bills for the check, Josiah rose to his feet. As he left the diner he continued to scour in all directions, still hoping against hope that suddenly Ezra would pop up out of the bushes, or appear casually strolling towards him from round the corner. 

In the sun-warmed SUV, head buzzing from lack of sleep, he found the number for the local cops, left a message for some community sergeant to contact him, then made the calls home. Christina nearly choked on her early-morning hot water and lemon, but she agreed to file for a continuance, although she said it would piss off the judge they’d been working really hard to keep sweet. School bounced back an immediate automated text thanking him for the absence notification, and Josiah vaguely wondered what Nathan’s tormentors would think when he didn’t turn up to class. The doctor on Vin’s case couldn’t come to the phone just yet according to Nathan, so Josiah gritted his teeth, rang Leila at Social Services. She was somewhat speechless to learn that Josiah was going to miss his big day in court, but he didn’t fill her in on the why of everything, just said Christina would be in touch. 

No sooner had he finished speaking to Leila Beverley than he took a call from Nettie Wells. The cellphone was beginning to over-heat.

Always one of Vin’s greatest champions, and an old friend of many years’ standing, Nettie’s voice coming at him down the line made Josiah’s eyes feel hot. She’d openly admitted she didn’t quite see in young Ezra Standish what Josiah and the boys purported to see, but wasn’t going to choose this moment to scold Josiah for chasing across the country to find him. Or for what he was risking. Her concern, thank the Lord, was all for Vin.

 _“I’ll be honest with you, Josiah. They don’t like the look of him.”_

She sounded calm and soothing, but Josiah could read her tone of voice well enough to know that it hid the messy detail of an incipient panic at the hospital. 

_“Although... they’re holding off on the tap for the time being. He’s not responding to what they’ve given him so far, but then they said it might take a few hours. In any case, without the rash they can’t be certain what they’re looking at and they don’t want to put him through it if they don’t have to. It’s still on the table, though. So, please.”_ She became brisk. _“For the love of God, although we need you back here as soon as you can make it, don’t go and kill yourself on the road driving like a maniac. Is that clear? Vin’s in good hands. He seems to know Nathan and I are here, and we told him you’re on your way.”_

“Seems to know?”

Nettie was matter-of-fact, pulling no punches. _“The fever’s gotten a pretty tight hold.”_

Josiah’s eyes burned hotter than ever. Emotion clogged his throat. His hand tightened around the ignition key. He needed to start the car, drive around to 13th Street and pick up the boys now. Get on the road before one more moment passed.

“I’m coming,” he said. “Tell Vin I’m coming.”

As he shut off the phone and put the car in drive, he noticed two things.

In the rearview he saw Chris and Buck round the corner from 13th. And at the same moment, from the front entrance of Motel-6, there appeared two more young men, about the same age. They had a couple of bags between them, had evidently just checked out. They didn’t look towards the SUV, just began to saunter towards the old campervan parked at the very end of the row. They were tough-looking youths, Josiah thought, and their severe crew-cuts wouldn’t have looked out of place at the airbase up the road.

More than that though. They were the only guests up and about and they might, just might, have seen Ezra.

Josiah killed the engine, got a hand to the door. As he climbed out of the car he was aware that Chris and Buck were approaching at his back. The youths were twenty yards ahead of them but he picked up pace to catch their attention.

“Excuse me!” he called.

They both stopped and turned. One, carrying the heavier of the bags, shaded his eyes from the sun to see who was hailing them. The other looked right past Josiah, seeming to stiffen.

“Sorry to bother you,” Josiah said, coming up close. “I just wanted to ask you a question. Seems like you were staying here last night?”

“What if we were?” the youth with the heavy bag asked.

“Listen, it’s just a friendly question. Nothing funny. I only need to ask if you happened to see a kid anywhere round the Motel last night? A boy, about nine years old, brown hair, green eyes. He might have been making a call over at that phone booth there. Or just have been... around.”

An unmistakable look of fear passed over the features of the second youth. His eyes widened and he swallowed thickly. The one who Josiah was addressing dug the van keys from a pocket with one hand, keeping tight hold of the bag with the other.

“Nope sorry,” he said. “We were in our room all night. Didn’t see nobody or nothing.” Some shadow entered his eyes though and Josiah felt Buck and Chris come to a halt at his back.

“Josiah,” Chris said, and he was speaking in the kind of dangerous, deadly voice that Josiah had only ever heard him use maybe once or twice before. He was slightly out of breath, too, as if he’d hurried the last stretch. “That bag.”

Josiah glanced at it. It was unusual, old-fashioned and smart, a type of carpet-bag affair you wouldn’t expect young people to want to carry around with them.

“That’s Ezra’s,” Chris said. “That’s the bag he brought when he stayed.” As soon as he’d said it, Josiah recognized it too. Could see Chris hoisting into the back of a Toyota Corolla on the misty morning Ezra, scared out of his wits but not showing it for one moment, had been obliged to leave them for an uncertain future.

“Oh crap,” the second youth said. “Oh crap, Jimmy...”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Jimmy said, antagonistic, although there was a wariness about him that told Josiah he was weighing up their chances of taking the three strangers and not liking the odds much. “This is my bag.”

“Where’s Ezra?” Chris said. “What have you done with him?”

“Suppose you open up that there campervan of yours, and show us what you got inside?” Buck was cheerfully menacing, showing his teeth. Josiah could feel the balanced tension of both his boys, that they were ready to fight if they had to, and he knew they could. He almost felt himself unnecessary, although he too was assessing what they were confronted with, whether there were weapons.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Jimmy wasn’t going to back down. Not just yet.

“Our little brother is missing,” Buck returned at once, and he was looking intently at the campervan now. “He’s missing, and you have his bag. He called us from that phone booth last night. We know he was here.”

“Damn it, Jimmy. Just give ’em the bag. Give ’em the bag and the kid and let’s get the Hell out of here. He’s a goddamned nuisance anyhow.”

Buck took a swaggering step forward, right past both the youths, and banged hard on the side of the van. “Ezra!” he shouted. “You in there?” He peered into the nearest, curtained window. There was no discernible noise from inside.

“Are you gonna unlock it?” Chris grated out. He wasn’t quite as tall as the youth Jimmy, but something about him, his voice, his eyes, his demeanor, was clearly intimidating.

Josiah slid his cellphone out of his pocket and held it in the palm of his hand. Almost like a peace offering. “Any moment now,” he said in a quiet, even tone, “Sergeant Morera of the Wichita Falls Police Department is going to call me. What do you want me to tell him?”

“Open the damn van, Jimmy!” the fearful youth exclaimed. He was past caring about whatever plan they’d had, clearly just wanted out of the situation.

Jimmy, eyes on Chris, released his tight hold on the bag, let it slip lower in his grasp. For a second Josiah thought he might be about to go for a knife or something, but he didn’t. Instead, his gaze never leaving Chris’s face, he held up his free hand, with the keys to the campervan dangling from one finger. 

“Buck,” Chris said tightly, and Buck snagged the key in one fluid move.

When the sliding door was dragged open, nothing looked amiss. There were upright seats that would convert into beds, a sticky-looking foldaway table, a long bench for storage with a heavy toolbox sitting on top.

“It was just to frighten him,” the fearful youth began to babble. “We never meant to hurt him or nothin’. He cheated us, tried to steal all our money. It was just to teach him a lesson. Oh Jesus, Jimmy, get him out of there...”

Chris, burning with mayhem, seized hold of the bag, pulled it out of Jimmy’s grasp so hard he staggered and threw it to Buck. “Do as he says, Jimmy,” he growled. Josiah wasn’t sure if now was the perfect moment for the cell to ring, or the very worst. He threw a hunted look around the car lot, was surprised to find that it was completely deserted still. There was nobody on the street, no cars passing. His throat felt dry and his head was swimming. 

_We never meant to hurt him._

Oh God. 

Jimmy climbed into the van. With supreme effort he moved the heavy toolbox off the bench, set it under the table. Then he bent down and pulled at the lid. It seemed both stiff and heavy, didn’t lift at first. Getting both hands under the edge, Jimmy pulled.

“Crap,” he muttered as the hinge slowly released. “Help me here.”

Josiah stuffed his cell back in his pocket, climbed up into the van. With his heart in his throat he peered down into the open bench. It looked like a roll of camping equipment in there, a swathe of blankets tied up in nylon rope. But he could see little more than that. Jimmy leaned down to take up one end of the roll.

“He’s all right,” he snarled out. “We gave him air. He ain’t dead.”

“Sweet Jesus, you locked him in here... like this?” Buck, leaning in the opening, was open-mouthed in shock.

Josiah picked up the other end of the roll, his heart beating fast and thick. The bundle of blankets was warm, unmoving, and a spiky sprout of dark hair was sticking from one end.

They laid the bundle on the floor of the van and Jimmy cautiously indicated his top pocket. “I got a knife.”

Buck flashed his teeth again, still in a way Jimmy wouldn’t want to misinterpret. “Yeah,” he said, “me too.” And he produced one from the back pocket of his jeans. Josiah mentally told himself to be glad of it, and to leave the interview about how and why the eighteen year-old carried a wicked-looking switchblade around with him to another time. It made short work of the nylon – that seemed the most important fact right now.

And Ezra was alive all right. Released from captivity and set down on wobbly legs on the asphalt of the parking lot in front of them. Terrified and disorientated, bruised and filthy from head to toe, face puffy and streaked with tears, hardly able to stand on his own two feet, but alive.

The last thing Josiah knew he should do was hug him, although his instinct was screaming at him to do so. It was physically painful stopping himself.

“I’ll go get him some water,” Buck said, pocketing his knife after his own covert look around to see if they were being observed. He tipped his chin at Ezra who had made efforts to plant himself firmly. The boy had one arm drawn into his body as if it was still bound and seemed to have a handkerchief wrapped around the hand. And he was staring at Jimmy with a mix of venom and bleary watchfulness in his face that Josiah hated.

“Your kid is a fuckin’ menace, mister, shouldn’t be allowed to do the things he does,” the fearful youth said, teeth-grindingly defensive and apparently unaware of the irony of his claim.

Josiah thought he was fortunate neither Chris nor Buck punched him.

Ezra had been there, in the dark, immobile, for eight or nine hours. Jimmy admitted as much, surly and grasping for self-justification. They’d stuffed an old sock in the boy’s mouth, tied it up with a paisley bandana that smelled of weed. Just so’s he couldn’t shout out. And they’d done it as some kind of ‘retribution’. Because, so they said, this smart-mouth nine year-old kid they’d come across in a bus station in Little Rock, Arkansas, had swindled them out of fifty whole bucks. Which was something like a small fortune to all concerned. And then he’d tried to steal Jimmy’s $75 titanium watch, apparently. They’d intended to keep his money, his bag and the nice things in it, then kick him out at the roadside somewhere further on in their wanderings to the west coast.

At any other time, on any other day, Josiah knew he’d have called the cops on them. But while he wouldn’t excuse their crime, which could have gone so very badly wrong, Josiah realized how much he recognized them. Theirs was a world, and a mindset, that very few people of his acquaintance knew anything about, and nor would they want to. It was a world he himself wouldn’t know if it hadn’t all started, years ago, with a nine year-old Chris Larabee.

And it was Chris now who had snaked an arm around Ezra. Making the contact, pulling the shaky boy close into his side even while he himself was still keeping Jimmy at bay just with the force of his look.

“You good to go, Ezra?” Josiah said, and was relieved when Ezra blinked. His eyes, almost puzzled, wandered to meet Josiah’s. He hadn’t resisted Chris’s protection, although he looked uncomfortable with it. “Come on back home with us,” Josiah enlarged. There was an uneasy thought just now coming into focus in the front of his mind that he should probably get the boy some medical help. He was carrying an injury of some sort judging by the way he was holding himself, looked in dire need of fluid and nutrition. “I’m sorry we took so long to get here.”

“No cops?” Ezra said in a raspy, voiceless whisper.

Josiah shook his head and it seemed to be enough. Ezra gave him the slightest of nods in acknowledgement, gratefully held out what seemed to be his good hand for the water bottle Buck had brought.

They left the two youths in the car lot of the Motel-6, fumbling for cigarettes, disbelieving that they weren’t about to be arrested. And, Josiah suspected, grateful the opposition forces hadn’t decided to take them apart. Josiah didn’t even bother to take note of the number-plate of the van, and he guessed they knew that. 

Ezra wouldn’t relinquish the carpet-bag. He let them help him into the SUV, accepted a fresh bottle of water, sat quiet while Josiah fastened the seat belt.

“We need to make any calls for you?”

A firm headshake.

They pulled out on to 287 once more almost as if entering another dimension that had been there all along had they but known it. It was morning rush hour and ordinary folk were going about their business. The SUV headed back towards Amarillo, Josiah at the wheel. They’d be lucky to get into Denver by six o’clock. Two hours after the county court would have shut for the day. Many hours after any decision on a spinal tap would have been taken.

Not even able yet to acknowledge to himself that at least he’d done right by Ezra, feeling nearly drunk from lack of sleep, Josiah was consumed by the need to get back and do the same for Vin. By his almost paralyzing fear of what might be happening to him.

They’d only driven a few miles when the call-back came from the Wichita Falls Police. Josiah held his hand out to Buck for the cell, even though he knew he shouldn’t.

_“Mr. Sanchez? You wanted to file a missing child report?”_

Josiah took a quick look into the rearview, at Ezra’s grimy face, almost unrecognizable from last year. His hair was shorter, his face leaner, older with things Josiah didn’t want to think about. There was the familiar schooled self-possession in the green eyes that looked back at him. Something else as well, of course. Always something else. An expectation of the absolute worst, perhaps. And fear, such fear.

“Thank you, Officer,” Josiah said, wondering yet again what he might be taking on. He spoke in a breezy and relaxed manner, despite how counter-intuitive it felt. “But he’s back. He’s home.” 

_“No further action required?”_

Josiah swallowed. “That’s right,” he said, “No further action required.” 

He saw Chris glance across at Ezra, who was steadfastly wide awake, processing what had just happened and everything he’d been told. Chris had outlined what was going on back in Denver, that the reason they couldn’t stop and get Ezra fixed up was because they were racing to get to Vin who was very sick in the hospital and needed Josiah. Ezra had taken all that in and then stared listlessly out of the window. He had his head tilted against the glass now as if too weary to sit up straight, his left arm drawn into his chest and his right shielding the clearly injured hand. His other hand was draped over his bag.

Back at the Motel-6 car lot he’d said a faint, polite, but plainly heartfelt, thank you to Josiah for coming. And that was about all he’d said.

Until about fifty miles down the road, when Buck was already fast asleep in the passenger seat, and Chris was close to it.

“Josiah?” he’d croaked, and Josiah met his eyes once more in the rearview. It felt unutterably good to hear his name spoken. 

“Yeah, Ezra, what do you need?”

Ezra gave another little head shake to convey he didn’t need anything. He merely patted the carpet-bag. “I have Vin’s space book.”

Another wave of emotion rolled towards Josiah. It was made worse by lack of sleep and anxiety, he knew that, and he had to fight with his own face to stop it crumpling there and then, and some kind of unhelpful sob breaking out.

After a couple of swallows, having to stare fixedly at the highway stretching out before him, he managed to speak.

“Good,” he said. “Vin will be pleased.”

Ezra nodded, as if satisfied by that at least, and then rested his head back on the glass.

*

They stopped only twice the whole way back. For bathroom breaks, gas and drive-thru snacks. Buck and Chris swapped out with Josiah behind the wheel and the three of them managed to grab a couple of hours’ sleep apiece. It took about half the journey before Ezra succumbed to the same need, eventually accepting Buck’s balled-up coat as a blanket and pillow combined.

News from Denver trickled in across the day. Vin was still holding his own.

“He’s no worse,” Josiah informed them all at lunch time. Chris was at the wheel by that stage, shirtsleeves rolled up, occasionally pinching his bare arm with his other hand to keep awake. Buck was hyper from too much caffeine in the back. 

“But no better, right?”

“No, no better.”

“And they don’t know what it is?”

“Tests are inconclusive so far, whatever that means.” After a somewhat tetchy call to the doctor, they were still holding off on the lumbar puncture. But they were maintaining the right to get a court order to give consent if Josiah hadn’t turned up by six. Passing over temporary responsibility to Nettie Wells over the telephone was deemed unacceptable.

The county court sounded just as tetchy, even though they’d eventually agreed to a continuance and put off the hearing for exactly one month. Christina Alvarez, who Josiah would have liked to take to dinner if only it didn’t constitute conflict of interest, was gratifyingly single-minded, busy negotiating for temporary custody of Ezra with Social Services in Atlanta.

“Okay, so guys,” Josiah had said, not even joking. “You two gotta behave like goddamned angels for the next four weeks, right? Like saints.” He felt reckless with fatigue. “So that might just mean no parties at all. No nights out.” A quick glance at Chris. “No Ella.”

The fine profile tightened but Chris didn’t say a word. Buck just made an inelegant noise. Josiah twisted to look into the back, at Ezra lost under Buck’s coat. They’d looked at the hurt hand during the first stop, found painkillers, anti-inflammatories and a sling in Nathan’s medical kit. Ezra had gone sickly green when they examined his wrist.

“That’s broken,” Chris had said.

Josiah was more than relieved that the mix of meds and half a sandwich had tipped the kid into what looked like a deep sleep.

Oh boy. It was surely going to look great when he turned up at the hospital for Vin with another child needing emergency treatment in tow.

Denver was dark again, just as when they’d left, when the SUV finally rolled to a halt.

“You go home,” Josiah said to Buck and Chris. He was too strung out and exhausted to waste words. “Collect J.D. from his friend, eat a good dinner, get some rest. I’ll be sending Nathan back in a cab, or else Nettie may bring him. Ezra’s with me.”

Dreamlike he found his way to the ER. Since he couldn’t be in two places at once, however much he wanted to, he passed Ezra over to Nettie Wells, who just embraced him and said, he hoped to both of them, “Thank God you’re safe.”

“Vin?”

“They’re prepping him, still need your signature. Fourth floor. Doctor’s name’s Farrell.” Nettie practically shooed him. “I’ll get Ezra seen. Nathan’s up there. Go!”

Nathan looked like he’d been weathering a storm for the last twenty four hours. And relieved beyond measure to see Josiah.

“It’s been a little crazy,” was his verdict, delivered in a suspiciously wobbly voice against Josiah’s shoulder. 

“Mr. Sanchez?” 

Farrell, the doctor, clearly still reserving judgment on the family situation she was witnessing, stood behind Nathan. She held a clipboard and a pen.

“How is he?” Josiah asked, taking the pen, his vision blurring a moment as he tried to get the page in focus. His reading glasses were... well, Hell knew where they were.

“I need to tell you about the procedure,” she said smoothly. “I suggest I do so as we walk.”

“Go home,” Josiah mouthed over his shoulder to Nathan, but he had a feeling Nathan wouldn’t. Not quite yet. Knowing him he’d probably be in the elevator going down to the ER at any moment.

“Vin’s caused us quite a considerable amount of concern,” she said as they fell into a brisk step. “His condition has been relatively stable for a few hours, but he’s obviously very sick. We’re not sure why.”

“Meningitis?” Josiah said, almost relieved at finally letting himself say it out loud.

“Of course that’s a possibility. As is encephalitis, a number of neural conditions. Any of which would be confirmed by the spinal tap.” 

“I know what’s involved,” he said, already scrawling his name on the line. “Just let me see him.”

“We already gave him something to help him relax a little,” Farrell said, pushing open a door. “The fever – and your absence - has made him very... anxious.”

Yeah, Josiah had been waiting for that. It still felt like a gut punch.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said in a soft voice as he walked in.

Four steps and he was across the room, round the bed. There were a couple of nurses in there, a male doctor with surgical gloves on, and Vin – his boy, who he knew he should never have left.

The child was groggy, curled on his side ready for the needle, his lower back painted in iodine and his oddly curved spine pale under the unforgiving hospital lights. Spots of fever burned on his cheeks and strands of damp hair were stuck to his neck. His eyes, normally the blue of calm summer skies, were over-bright.

“He has scoliosis,” Josiah said absently, sliding his butt into the chair by the bed, and reaching for the nearest small hand, the one without the IV shunt.

“Yes, we picked that up from his notes. It won’t be a problem. What we need is for him to stay absolutely still. At the moment that’s the most important thing. His brother’s been here the last hour or two, and we’ve tried to explain what we’re doing.”

“Ah damnit,” Josiah said, voice catching. Now he was up close he could see the boy shivering, a fine, almost indiscernible tremor under the hospital gown. It was illness, of course, but also fear, probably one he couldn’t even sort out for himself in the muddle of his fever. Josiah tightened his grip on the clammy hand and Vin’s eyes searched him out, lethargic and not quite connecting. “I’m here, baby boy. You’re gonna be fine. Just hold on to me tight as you want, and keep just as still as you possibly can.”

It was a goddamned big needle too. Enough to make Josiah’s stomach unsettled. His thumb set up a gentle rhythm over the tense knuckles curled in his hand. At the boy’s other side one of the nurses had moved to press down gently against a hip and shoulder.

Vin didn’t do much more than push his face into the bed. Josiah could see his mouth move against the sheet as the needle slid in, the crease on his forehead and the sickening shudder of tension along his shoulders as he felt it. Fingernails pinched weakly against Josiah’s palm. And there was just the faintest noise, a little puff of distress and protest that made Josiah’s stomach knot.

“All right, it’s all right.” Josiah leaned closer, blocking his own view of the procedure, the knobbly line of the small spine, the metal piercing skin. He knew his voice was a hoarse bass, dried out by the journey and his emotion. “You’re doing so great. Nice and still, kiddo.”

“We’re in,” the doctor was saying, his voice a tenor counterpoint. It was matter-of-fact, speaking to the whole room, where Josiah’s was soft and only for Vin. 

Josiah didn’t release his hold on the hand, not for the whole thirty minutes or more. He didn’t feel good about any of this, didn’t like the blanket of medication and fever dulling Vin’s reactions, wished he’d made more noise, been able to say Josiah’s name, even cuss him a little for having been gone so long.

“It’s all going fine,” the doctor said after a while. “Nurse, if you could release at the hip, bring the legs down just a half inch. How are we doing there, Mr. Sanchez?”

Josiah took his eyes off Vin’s face for a second, gave the doctor a tight nod.

“I know it seems horrible,” the nurse said quietly. “But with the medicine we gave him before, he really won’t be in much pain. More discomfort. He may feel sore afterwards for a day or two but we’ll keep an eye on that.” She paused. “Poor little man. It’s been a tough time.”

“And might get tougher?” Josiah found himself asking. He was aware the doctor flashed a look over at him.

“Meningitis still isn’t top of our list,” the medic said in the soothing but somehow distant tone of a professional who knows best. Josiah had been on the end of that tone many times. “And even if this tap comes up positive for that, there’s very good treatment available, and your son’s relative stability over the last twenty-four hours gives us hope we’ve caught it in time.”

“How long until we know?”

“We’d hope to establish one of the more serious conditions after twenty-four hours or so. Perhaps a little longer. In the meantime we’ll start on some broad spectrum antibiotics, keep treating the fever.” He went back to concentrating on the needle, but finally Josiah became aware that it had been slowly withdrawn and the nurses were covering Vin up again, gently straightening him out on the bed.

“I’m glad you got back in time,” one of them said. “It may not have seemed like it, but I’m sure he was aware of you being here.”

They were left alone for a while, the door closing behind the outward procession of nurses, doctor and equipment. It was quiet in the room except for the very faint hum of the air conditioning. Vin was still on his side, less hunched over but not looking very comfortable. He’d shifted himself across the bed a little, so his knees under the blankets were just about touching the side of Josiah’s arm. His glazed eyes kept opening, wandering around the limited range they had, fixing on Josiah’s hand around his own, and then closing again.

“Sorry, son,” Josiah couldn’t help saying, a great big sigh of regret. “I’m sorry you had to be here without me all this time. If I’d known you were so sick...”

He stopped himself. It didn’t help. Because what would he have done, after all, if he had known? He’d have made a different choice, of course, almost certainly. Done something that even now would be tearing him up inside in a whole different way.

Instead he pulled his weary mind on to practicalities. On to how to keep vigil here without falling apart, without disrupting his younger kids and without putting much on the shoulders of his older ones. How to cover the hospital and Social Services and the court and Atlanta all at the same time. While fitting in Ezra somehow.

Yeah, he wasn’t sure there existed enough practicalities to handle all that. Still, that was what he had to try and do.

He thought he might have dropped off for a while, sitting there with Vin in his half-asleep, half-delirious state, mumbling in a sad, scratchy voice every so often, although about what Josiah couldn’t tell.

Then suddenly Nathan was in the room, poking him in the back of the shoulder.

“How’d it go?”

“Good. OK. Ah heck, it was... unpleasant, to say the least. But Vin did good. It’ll be a wait for the results though.” He looked the teenager over, could hardly credit how he was still on his feet. “How are you doing?”

“Bushed. Miz Wells is too. What you wanna do about Ezra?”

What, indeed.

“What did they find?”

“They’re fixing up his arm right now. It’s bust, pretty bad, and there’s something wrong with one of his shoulders too. Maybe a dislocation.” Nathan caught a yawn, rubbed his face. “Doctor said it looked like he’d been in a fight.” He made what Josiah understood to be a ‘wtf face’. “What happened to him? He won’t tell me.”

“Long story,” Josiah said. “And I don’t even know most of it.”

“Reckon they’ll keep him tonight.” Nathan was somehow cagey. “He looks pretty rough, and...”

“What else?”

“Heard ‘em talking about the cops. Miz Wells told ‘em there was no need, he already had a caseworker. But someone will want to know who was knocking around a nine year-old kid. And why he ran away from where he was living.”

Josiah shook his head. One thing at a time, he told himself. One goddamned thing at a time. “Nathan,” he said. “You’ve been on duty now for... Lord knows how long. You need to stand down now. For all our sakes. I need you to take some money from my coat and take a cab home.”

Nathan practically bristled. “But you-“ he began.

“Listen now. I need... to know my kids are at home, eating dinner and going to bed at a normal time. That you’re going to school tomorrow with J.D. Really, Nate. That’s what I need.”

Because he was so tired, Nathan tried to argue the point for a while. But he clearly recognized they’d have a stupid argument that would help nobody if he didn’t give in. So he did as Josiah said, finally left the hospital and went home. Josiah just hoped Nettie Wells was keeping the cops and child psychology brigade at bay down in the ER. 

Later, when it seemed like Vin had fallen into a slightly more restful period of sleep, the nurses made him leave to get something to eat, and to go down and check on his other concerns.

After a quick sandwich to stop him falling down in the corridor, and a frustrating hunt around ER he eventually found Ezra, alone. Not quite as filthy as before but still uncharacteristically grubby, he’d been parked in a small open area by a hectic corridor on a drip. He had a robust cast on one arm, a sling on the other and looked like nearly all the stuffing had been pulled out of him. Not all, but damned near.

His eyes distinctly lit up, though, when Josiah walked round the corner and came to sit down by the high bed. Ezra was cross-legged in the middle of it, sheets pushed aside. He had bruising on his shins and Josiah could see some swelling under one eye he hadn’t noticed before. And Lord knew what else under the hospital gown.

Even if there’d been no injuries Josiah knew there’d be no hand holding down here. Not right away. As much as it pained him he couldn’t talk to Vin while he was so sick, it pained him that Ezra immediately began a conversation as if nothing was wrong at all.

“They’re very busy here,” he observed without any other greeting. 

“They certainly are. But not too busy to check you out properly, make sure you’re all right.”

“I am.” 

“You’re busted up, Ezra. And I know what kind of a place you were in for nine hours. And that those young guys hurt you.”

Ezra looked down at his cast and frowned. “Do I have to stay?”

“For a night maybe. Then you can come home.”

“Your home?”

“My home. Which... well maybe, if that’s what you think you want, might be your home too. Permanently. I wasn’t going to say that right out, but somehow there’s no point not saying it.” 

Ezra frowned more than ever, not lifting his eyes from the swollen fingers sticking out of the end of the cast.

“Sounds like that would be... difficult to arrange.”

Maybe even impossible.

“It can be a rollercoaster ride.” Josiah was plain, but gentle. With some kids it was best not to focus on the negatives at all. With others, like Ezra, you needed to be completely up front else they’d call you on it right away. “There’s no firm promises and oftentimes none of us is quite sure what’s about to happen next.”

“If I say I want it?”

At first Josiah wasn’t sure exactly what he meant. “You mean, to come live with us?” He wished Ezra would lift his eyes so he could see more of what might be going on in his head.

“If I tell them I want it, then does it happen?”

“Not always, son. Or, not always straightaway. That’s what I mean about the rollercoaster.”

A careful silence, weighing all of it up, and then a small, discontented tut. “Mother is still in prison.”

“Yes.”

“I thought she liked I could visit, but I don’t know.”

“Of course she did.”

“Well,” Ezra said, skeptical even of his own assertion. “I suppose it _could_ be one of those things that’s still true even when you can’t prove it...” He had finally looked up from the broken wrist, was staring at an unknown point in the distance across the constantly-busy corridor. “Mother told them sometimes we’re not very good together.” He paused, looking back at Josiah, more defensive again now. “She’s very clever.”

“So I hear.”

“And beautiful.”

“I have no doubt about it.”

“It’s not her fault.”

Josiah’s gut twisted. Not even a little? he wanted to ask. On the boy’s face he could read the awful certainty that, somewhere along the way, he believed it must be his fault. His brows couldn’t help a small raise although he didn’t say a word. Ezra seemed to understand all that. He shrugged.

“Some things we need to agree on though,” Josiah said then, gravely, to show he was serious. Ezra seemed to recognize that tone and squared his shoulders, ready. “You need to tell me what’s been happening with you. Maybe not right now, but sometime soon. Why you skipped town, got yourself in difficulty again. You’re getting yourself a bad rep for being on the run, and I’m sure you don’t want your ma worrying about you.” He paused then, let it sink in for a moment. “And then... you really have to stop helping yourself to other people’s property whenever you see something you like. Because it’s wrong, Ezra, and because it keeps getting you into trouble. I just thank the good Lord we managed to find you when we did.”

“Will you give the book to Vin?”

It wasn’t quite the response he expected, but the book seemed to be on Ezra’s conscience, so Josiah supposed it was his way of addressing the point that had just been put to him.

“He’s a little too sick right now, but soon I hope.”

“Oh,” Ezra said. He thought for a moment, shifted position on the bed, a shadow passing across his face. “You should go back to him.”

Josiah wanted to. In truth he thought he wanted nothing more than to be upstairs, with Vin. Ezra didn’t need to be given up on so soon though. “All in good time,” he said. “I’m fine right here for now.”

“Well, when Mrs. Wells comes.”

“Stop trying to get rid of me, son. You’re the one who called me, remember.”

Ezra nodded, embarrassed. He swallowed, shifted again in discomfort. Josiah wondered if he’d been given enough pain medication. He badly wanted to know how the boy came to have a broken wrist, how his shoulder had been taken out and what he’d run away from in the first place, but he couldn’t deal with it right now. Ezra didn’t seem like he’d be too cooperative in the truth department anyhow. He was too busy pretending it was perfectly normal to be homeless, hurt, alone, and in trouble.

“Thank you,” Ezra said in the end, as if that was usually a good way to gain the upper hand in any conversation. 

“My pleasure.” Josiah felt a smile nudge his lips that he hadn’t been expecting. He was too weary to let it right out, but he pulled his chair nearer the bed, patted the mattress and hoped he was showing his priorities weren’t as cut and dried as the boy probably believed. “Now, suppose we plump up those pillows a little, get you resting a bit easier?”

*

It was a day and a half before the results came back. 

All that time Vin was critical and Josiah didn’t quite know which way to turn. Chris and Buck were old enough now to know how bad things were, to understand it completely. They could shoulder the worry along with him, only he was reluctant to let them. Nathan certainly understood too, but he also understood he needed to preserve some semblance of optimism for J.D., already fretting over his mother all those miles away in Boston, who they understood didn’t have very much longer to live. 

Josiah went to the hospital chapel once or twice. There’d been many long days and nights of worry for him before, but none as bad as this, so it seemed like the right place to go. He’d had a rocky relationship with the church for many years though, and hadn’t put in much time at all since Hannah died. The chapel was cool and calm and helped him focus his thoughts. Having Chris and Buck somehow helped more. 

Turned out not to be meningitis, but possibly as serious.

Something that had come in on the back of the gastro-enteritis virus, something virulent and unexpected that had swollen Vin’s brain and flooded his system with infection. Maybe something he’d picked up on the nature trail. The boy was two long weeks in the hospital, one of those in intensive care, and he knew very little of anything at all until they managed to get the damned thing under control.

Josiah camped out in his room, taking occasional breaks when Chris or Buck, showing more stamina for sleepless nights than he had, took over. The university was generous although he figured he’d have to work his ass off for them once he got back.

“’siah?” was the first thing Vin said when he finally pulled free of the fever. He’d been so ill for so many days there’d been talk of permanent damage. Then, a few minutes later, he’d tugged on Josiah’s little finger and said groggily, “You git Ezra?”

Josiah had laid his head alongside the boy’s in welcome. He spilled tears on to Vin’s face to hear his voice and know he wasn’t lost. They felt scorching hot, left him feeble with relief.

When he called home with the news he thought it sounded like controlled chaos back there. There were things banging about dangerously in the kitchen and boys yelling raucously to him and each other. The sound was wonderful. It was normal, grounding, Chris’s voice pitched gruffer than ever with emotion, coming at him against a background of noisy relief from the rest. Then, after a day of re-hydration in the hospital, and a tough afternoon with all the agencies who wanted to deal with him, Ezra was released into the care of the Sanchez household as well. This was for a trial period that Atlanta Social Services wanted to be four weeks, Denver Social Services wanted to be eight, and ended up being agreed as six.

“There’s a lot we can do in six weeks,” Chris said when they heard the verdict, and Josiah could already imagine how hard it was going to be at the end of that time. If they hadn’t managed to procure a longer placement than that, Ezra would be leaving them again - right before Christmas.

“And does he seem OK right now?” Josiah wanted to know.

Chris had considered. “Ezra doesn’t exactly do happy,” he said. “But he will.”

Neither of the boys would be fit enough to go to school during that time. So Nettie Wells said she’d take them on.

“Well that sounds like fun,” Buck had said in response to that revelation, eyes twinkling fit to bust. “Rather you than me.”

“Thanks,” Nettie had evidently responded, dry as could be, but Josiah heard she didn’t seem one bit worried.

*

Getting Vin home was the best thing.

On the journey back from the hospital, Chris drove the SUV, and all seven seats were occupied.

“You know it’s why I bought it don’t you?” Josiah said, grinning over his shoulder at all of them. Tucked right in the back with J.D., Ezra’s face looked warm, tinged with embarrassment and pleasure.

The invalid was welcomed with ice cream and his choice of movies for movie night. He was a pathetic scrap, in all honesty, scrawny and washed out, but he was home. And would get better.

“No school,” he kept saying, pale face lit up by a grin of glee.

Ezra’s reaction on hearing of Nettie Wells’ involvement was less glee and more horrified apprehension.

“Are you sure it’s allowed?” he kept asking Josiah. And then, when he was assured it was absolutely above board, he declared that he was ambidextrous and perfectly capable of writing with his other hand and so didn’t need to be schooled at home after all.

“I’d agree with you, son,” Josiah responded, amused but rather wondering if Nettie realized what she was letting herself in for. “Thing is, your shoulder’s pretty badly crocked too. Doctors think staying at home’d be best for now, for a few weeks at least. Not just for the writing, but to give you a chance to heal.”

“Weeks and weeks!” Vin crowed at him. “Weeks and weeks and months!”

Despite the difficulties of maneuvering himself into it, Ezra had colonized the top bunk in Vin’s absence, and Nathan had moved out into Josiah’s study until the box room could be cleared. J.D., who’d taken just about all of the upheaval in his stride so far, was magnanimous about staying where he was. For the time being anyhow. He didn’t leave the other two alone much, though, just in case they decided to plan something without him. Josiah wanted to keep a close eye on him anyhow. The little boy couldn’t see the reality of losing his mother yet, but the news coming from back east seemed to suggest it would be a miracle if J.D. hadn’t been orphaned by the time the hearing arrived. Without needing to have it spelled out for him, Buck was the one standing ready to take the strain when that day came.

He and Chris seemed to be trying hard not to take up more or less where they’d left off when Josiah had demanded temporary curtailment of the party scene. Once Vin was home the hearing date was only two weeks away, so they knew they only needed to continue being virtuous for a while longer. 

“Two more weeks without booze,” Buck said to a grumpy Chris. “How hard can it be?”

Somehow Josiah didn’t think it was the booze that bothered Chris so much, but he didn’t have the strength to tackle the question of Miss Ella Gaines directly at the moment, although he knew he would when the time was right. Hell, he knew he’d surely have to.

Nathan, meanwhile, to nobody’s surprise and seemingly fired up by his frontline hospital experience, just threw himself back into his studies. And the next semester report would show it, even though Josiah suspected (because such things rarely evaporated without trace) that his troubles at school were ongoing. The trick, he guessed, would be preventing Buck and Chris, who probably knew the perpetrators from their own time, getting the scent of a righteous fight and heading in there all guns blazing.

The homecoming felt like a new start, and yet... there was still such a very long way to go. Unsurprisingly the younger ones tiptoed around one another for a while, unsure about the hierarchy and the changes. Despite Josiah’s best efforts, both J.D. and Vin were worried the postponement was a bad sign, could feel the ground shifting beneath their feet. And of course, on bad days, it looked to them like the sole reason everything had suddenly gotten so unsure again was Ezra. For himself Ezra was often prickly and anxious, which didn’t make him easy. From what Vin said he was starting to have bad dreams, getting into panics in the middle of the night thinking he was shut up somewhere and couldn’t breathe, couldn't get out. Only he wouldn’t talk about them. In the end he and Nathan swapped beds again so Vin, who still needed a good deal of care and sleep, wouldn’t be disturbed. The imperative for his rest meant Ezra and J.D. were frequently thrown into one another’s company. The potential for tension seemed huge. And was often a reality.

“They’ll be fine,” Buck told Josiah when he worried about it. 

Several days after Vin got home there seemed to be progress, at least for a little while.

Hearing the sounds of talk in the bunk room on a Saturday morning, Josiah took himself along to check that all was well. He slipped into the room and stood leaning against the wall. 

Vin was resting back on two pillows. He had a little more color in his cheeks than the last few days, didn’t seem quite so listless. Josiah’s heart rose at the sight. The much-traveled space book was lying open at the foot of the bottom bed. J.D. was hanging on the ladder, swinging about like he always did, even though he was repeatedly told not to. On the floor with his back against the nightstand and his crossed feet on the lowest rung of the ladder, was Ezra.

All three of them acknowledged that Josiah had come in but went back to their conversation without including him.

“We did space at school,” J.D. said, sliding his leg along the bed and poking dismissively at the book with a sock. “Stars and moons and all the planets stuff, Mars’n’Pluto’n’Mercury.”

“Uh-uh.” Ezra wagged a finger on his good hand, which Josiah knew was calculated to drive the youngest boy crazy. “Pluto isn’t a planet.”

“It so is.” J.D. narrowed his eyes at both Ezra and the certainty in his tone, and then frowned in dismay when Vin nodded his head gravely in agreement.

A little apologetic, Vin glanced sideways at Ezra as if naturally expecting him to elaborate, but Ezra wafted the good hand, imperiously waving him ahead.

“They downgraded it.” Vin spoke to J.D. in his quiet, sure tone, quieter than ever because he’d been ill. Telling him stuff, but trying not to be too bossy. “It’s different to the others now cuz they changed the rules.”

“Well that’s dumb. If it ain’t a planet, what is it?”

“A dwarf planet,” Vin informed him.

“Or-” Ezra began.

“A pluton,” Vin said quickly before he could finish. One of Ezra’s finely arched brows rose.

Still hanging on the ladder, J.D. looked perplexed. “So the space people don’t care about it no more? It ain’t... part of things?” There was something about that concept that seemed to bother him greatly.

Vin opened his mouth but this time Ezra got there first. “On the contrary,” he said in his bizarrely grown-up fashion. “They’re going to send a fly-by mission, just to check it out. They see five moons there now... but there could always be more.”

J.D. thought about that for a moment. He was still clearly perplexed, as well as suspicious about being patronized, but at the same time it did look as if he was trying hard not to be impressed.

A mission! A fly-by mission, not knowing what they’d find! All that way!

“I can tell you what they’re called if you like,” Ezra offered, but when J.D. scrunched his face up at him he seemed to lose confidence, flicked his gaze nervously to the occupant of the bed. “Or else Vin can.” 

“If I tell him he won’t remember,” Vin said with a faint grin, even though he got a punch in the arm from J.D.

Josiah smiled to himself. He knew they wouldn’t particularly notice him leave, but that was fine. When he was outside the door he could hear them still talking, then the sudden quite unexpected sound of Ezra and Vin both laughing at the same time. It was a relaxed, secure sound. A sound that suited this house.

The other three looked up as he came into the kitchen. They were halfway through simultaneously clearing up breakfast and, allegedly, doing some laundry, a combination which was likely to be more competitive sport than domestic harmony. The dishwasher was open, the sink was full of crockery and there was a heaped pile of not very fragrant socks in the middle of the floor. 

“All good?” Buck asked, freezing in the act of flicking a cloth towards Chris’s backside.

Josiah dared to nod, to exhale. He rolled his shoulders, let just some of the stiffness out and then sat in his usual chair.

With a wary eye on Buck, Chris stepped over the sock mountain and held out a brimming mug of coffee. Josiah took it with a nod. He held it close, sipped at it slowly, gave a small sigh of satisfaction. It was far and away the best thing he’d tasted for ages and he savored it just for a moment.

No time to sit around feeling comfortable though.

“Right,” he said, sitting up straighter. He put the mug on to the sticky, cluttered table with a clunk. “So... what’s happening with all of you?”

 

-ends-


End file.
